Triboaillet’s Proposition.
[21] “In 1828, M. Victor Triboaillet de Saint Amand proposed to establish a correspondence from Paris to Brussels, by placing along the highway, and at some feet deep, a metallic wire, about a line or a line and a half diameter. He recommended to cover the wire with shellac, upon which was to be wound silk, very dry, which should be covered in their turn with a coating of resin. The whole was then to be put into glass tubes carefully luted up with a resinous substance and secured by a last envelope in the earth, then varnished over and hermetically sealed. Then, by means of a powerful battery, he would communicate the electricity to the conducting wire, which would transmit the current to the opposite point to an electroscope, destined to render sensible the slightest influence, and left to each one to adopt at pleasure the number of motions to express the words or letters which they might need.”
Fechner’s Suggestion.[22]
“Fechner, in his manual of galvanism, (Voss, 1829, page 269,) remarked, that the electro magnetic effects of the galvanic current would be far more appropriate for the giving of signs than Soemmering’s plan by the decomposition of water.”
He suggested that wires, having twenty-four multiplicators should be extended between Leipsic and Dresden, and there connected, alternately, with a galvanic column, for telegraphic purposes. Indeed, he ventured to prophecy, that probably hereafter such a connection between the central point of a kingdom, and different provinces might be arranged as there was existing in animal bodies, between the central point of organic structure of particular members and nerves.
Magneto Electricity.
We come now to give an account of a new branch in the science of electricity, viz. magneto electricity; which Dr. Faraday was the first to discover in the year 1831. As this species of electricity has been applied to several of the plans of electric telegraphs, which we shall describe, it is desirable that some account should be given of its discovery, and of the instrument by which it is generated.
The following is an extract from “Daniell’s Introduction to Chemical Philosophy” 2d edition, London, 1843.
“The phenomena of electro magnetism are produced by electricity in motion; accumulated electricity, when not in motion, exerts no magnetic effects. Dr. Faraday early felt convinced that “as every electric current is accompanied by a corresponding intensity of magnetic action at right angles to the current, good conductors of electricity, when placed within the sphere of this action, should have a current induced through them, or some sensible effect produced, equivalent in force to such a current.” These considerations, with their consequence, the hope of obtaining electricity from ordinary magnetism, stimulated him to investigate the subject experimentally, and he was rewarded by an affirmative answer to the question proposed. He thus became, like Oersted, the founder of an entirely new branch of natural philosophy.
“If a wire connecting the two ends of a delicate galvanometer be placed parallel and close to the wire connecting the poles of a Voltaic battery, no effect will be produced upon the needle, however powerful the current may be. If the points opposed in the two wires be multiplied by coiling the one, as a helix, within the convolutions of the other, coiled in the same way, both being covered with silk to prevent metallic contact, still no effect will be discernible so long as the current is uninterrupted. When, however, the current of the battery is stopped by breaking the circuit, the needle is momentarily deflected, as by a wave of electricity passing in the same direction as that of the main current. Upon allowing the needle to come to a state of rest, and then renewing the contact, a similar impulse will be given to it in the contrary direction. While the current continues, the needle returns to its state of rest, again to be deflected in the first direction by stopping the current. Motion may be accumulated to a considerable amount in the needle, by making and breaking the contacts with the battery in correspondence with its swing. The same effects are produced when, the current being uninterrupted, the conducting wire is made suddenly to approach or recede from the wire of the galvanometer. As the wires approximate, there will be a momentary current induced in the direction contrary to the inducing current; and as the wires recede, an induced current in the same direction as the inducing current.