Many other investigations of Berlinghieri were, later on, communicated to the Société Philomathique, by whom they were successfully renewed, and, during the year 1810, a translation of his paper on the method of imparting magnetism to a bar of iron without a magnet appeared at p. 157, Vol. XXXV. of the Philosophical Magazine.
References.—Rozier, XL. p. 133, and XLI. p. 314; “Giorn. di Med. Prac. di Brera,” IX. pp. 171–298; L. B. Phillips, “Dict. of Biog. Ref.,” 1871, p. 137; Tipaldo, “Biografia ...” 1834.
A.D. 1792.—Lalande (Joseph Jérome le Français de), a distinguished scientist, and, doubtless, the best known of all French astronomers, who had previously communicated (1761) observations on the loadstone to the “Mémoires de Paris,” and had likewise written upon meteoric displays (1771), addresses to the Journal des Sçavans of Nov. 1792 a treatise entitled “Une Notice sur la découverte du Galvanisme,” justifying his claim to being the first introducer of galvanism into France, which he had before made through the columns of the Journal de Paris of the 17 Pluviôse, An. VII.
References.—Lalande, “Abrégé de l’Astronomie,” pp. 101, etc.; “Biog. Générale,” Vol. XXVIII. p. 948; “Biog. Universelle,” Vol. XXII. pp. 603–613; Ninth “Enc. Britannica,” Vol. XIV. p. 225; P. Sue, aîné, “Hist. du Galv.,” Paris, An. X (1802), Vol. I. p. 1.
A.D. 1792.—Chappe (Claude), a French mechanician (1763–1805), introduces the sémaphore, which he at first called a tachygraphe, from two Greek words meaning to write fast, but to which M. Miot, chief of one of the divisions of the War Department, gave the name of telegraph during the year 1793. Chappe had not long before devised a contrivance somewhat like that alluded to by Barthélémy (A.D. 1788), but it was not apparently brought into use.
His sémaphore consisted of a vertical wooden pillar 15 feet or 16 feet high, bearing a transverse beam 11 feet or 12 feet long, which turned upon its centre and held at each extremity pivoted arms so worked by cords or levers as to admit of 256 distinct signals. The semaphores were placed upon high towers, about four miles apart, on level ground, and even as much as ten miles apart upon intervening elevations. This system of signals was presented by Chappe to the Assemblée Législative, and was originally erected during the month of August 1794 upon stations between Paris and Lille (Lisle), a distance of about 148 miles. One of the first sentences conveyed between the two places by the Committee of Public Safety consumed 13 minutes and 40 seconds, but it was not long before dispatches could be conveyed in two minutes’ time, and it was through Chappe’s apparatus that the news of the recapture of the city of Condé was conveyed to the Assembly shortly after the entry of the troops of the Republic.
It is not now believed that Claude Chappe was acquainted with the devices of either Robert Hooke (at A.D. 1684) or of Guillaume Amontons (at A.D. 1704), as was at the time claimed by many of his jealous contemporaries. No doubt exists that he is justly entitled to the credit of having, with the assistance of other members of his family, developed an entirely new system of signals as well as the mechanism by which they were operated. The histories of telegraphy written by I. U. J. Chappe (Paris, 1824; Le Mans, 1840) review Claude Chappe’s investigations and the difficulties he encountered, besides making reference to the false magnetic telegraphs of A. T. Paracelsus (A.D. 1490–1541), William Maxwell (A.D. 1679), and F. Santanelli (“Philosophiæ reconditæ ...” Coloniæ, 1723) alluded to in the “Dictionnaire des Sciences Médicales.”
Claude Chappe’s uncle, L’Abbé Jean Chappe d’Auteroche (1722–1769), French astronomer, who succeeded N. L. de la Caille at the Paris Observatory as assistant to Cassini de Thury and edited a translation of the works of Dr. Halley, is the author of several memoirs upon the declination and inclination and upon lightning, meteors, etc., alluded to in J. B. J. Delambre’s “Hist. de l’Astron. au 18e siècle,” in J. C. Poggendorff’s “Biog.-Liter. Hand.,” Vol. I. p. 420, and in the “Mém. de Paris,” 1767, Mém. p. 344.
References.—English Encycl., “Arts and Sciences,” Vol. VIII. p. 65; “Johnson’s Encycl.,” Vol. IV. p. 757; “Penny Ency.,” Vol. XXIV. p. 146; Shaffner, “Manual,” pp. 27, 45 and 48; “Le Cosmos,” Paris, Feb. 4, 1905, p. 128; Nicholson’s “Journ. of Nat. Phil.,” Vol. VIII. p. 164, note; Sc. American Supplement, No. 475, p. 7579; “Emporium of Arts and Sciences,” Vol. I. p. 292; Rozier, XXXIV. p. 370, and XL. p. 329; “Bull. des Sc. de la Société Philomathique,” March 1793, No. 21, for an account of the experiments of Galvani and of Valli repeated for the Society by C. Chappe, M. Robillard and A. F. de Silvestre.
A.D. 1792.—Valli (Eusebius), Italian physician of Pisa, corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Turin, publishes his “Experiments on Animal Electricity” the results of which were communicated to the French Academy of Sciences and found to be of such great importance that a committee composed of Messrs. Le Roy, Vicq d’Azyr, Coulomb and Fourcroy, was directed to repeat them. The most important were repeated in Fourcroy’s laboratory on the 12th of July 1792.