Fig. 26
The "Sympathetic Telegraph" from Cabeo's Pilosophia Magnetica, 1629
This sympathetic magnetic telegraph figures extensively in the scientific literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: some believed in the figment, others condemned it. Addison described it in elegant prose, and Akenside in beautiful verse. Perhaps the most famous composition on the subject is a short Latin poem, written, after the style and vein of Lucretius, in 1617 by Famianus Strada, an Italian Jesuit. A few years after its publication in the author's "Prolusiones," a metrical translation was made by Hakewill and inserted on page 285 of his "Apologie, or Declaration of the Power and Providence of God," 1630.
Owing to the interest that attaches to this celebrated composition and the difficulty of getting Hakewill's "Apologie," we append his version of the poem.
The Loade above all other stones hath this strange property
If sundry steels thereto or needles you apply,
Such force and motion thence they draw that they
incline
To turn them to the Bear, which near the Pole doth shine.
Nay, more, as many steels as touch that virtuous stone
In strange and wondrous sort conspiring all in one
Together move themselves and situate together:
As if one of those steels at Rome be stirred, the other
The self-same way will stir though they far distant be,
And all through Nature's force and secret sympathy;
Well then if you of aught would fain advise your friend
That dwells far off, to whom no letter you can send;
A large smooth round table make, write down the
crisscross row
In order on the verge thereof, and then bestow
The needle in the midst which touch'd the Loade that so
What note soe'er you list, it straight may turn unto.
Then frame another orb in all respects like this
Describe the edge and lay the steel thereon likewise,
The steel which from the self-same Magnes motion drew;
This orb send with thy friend what time he bids adieu.
But on the days agree at first, when you do mean to
prove
If the steel stir, and to what letter it doth move.
This done, if with thy friend thou closely wouldst
advise,
Who in a country off far distant from thee lies,
Take thou the orb and steel which on the orb was set
The crisscross on the edge thou seest in order writ.
What notes will frame thy words, to them direct thy
steel
And it sometimes to this, sometimes to that note wheel
Turning it round about so often till you find
You have compounded all the meaning of your mind.
Thy friend that dwells far off, O strange! doth plainly
see
The steel so stir though it by no man stirréd be,
Running now here, now there: he conscious of the plot
As the steel-guide pursues, and reads from note to note.
Then gathering into words those notes, he clearly sees
What's needful to be done, the needle truchman is.
Now, when the steel doth cease its motion; if thy friend
Think it convenient answer back to send,
The same course he may take; and, with his needle
write
Touching the several notes which so he list indite.
Would God, men would be pleased to put this course in
use,
Their letters would arrive more speedy and more sure,
No rivers would them stop nor thieves them intercept;
Princes with their own hands, their business might effect.
We scribes, from black sea 'scaped, at length with hearty
wills
At th' altar of the Loade would consecrate our quills.
Another translation of the poem was made by Dr. Samuel Ward and published at the end of his "Wonders of the Loadstone," 1640.
Fig. 27
The "Sympathetic Telegraph" from Turner's Ars Notoria, 1657
Ampère's suggestion, made, as we have seen, in the year 1820, was not the first proposal to use electricity for telegraphic purposes. Already, in 1753, a writer in The Scots Magazine, signing himself C. M. (Charles Morrison, of Greenock, according to Sir David Brewster, and Charles Marshall, of Paisley, according to Latimer Clark), outlined a method involving the use of frictional electricity; and Lesage, of Geneva, constructed a short experimental line, in 1774, consisting of twenty-four wires and a pith-ball electroscope. But the man who attained the greatest success in the employment of static electricity for this purpose was Ronalds, of London, who, in 1816, erected a single-wire line eight miles long in his gardens at Hammersmith, with a pair of pith-balls and a rotating disc for receiving instrument.
When well satisfied that his system was practicable and reliable, Ronalds wrote to the head of the intelligence department in London urging the adoption of his invention for the public service; but he was promptly brought to realize the scant encouragement so often extended to inventors by persons in high places, that responsible official politely informing him "that telegraphs of all kinds are wholly unnecessary," and that no other than the mechanical one in daily use would be adopted.