The Telephone
More than two centuries ago, Robert Hooke, in the preface to his “Micrographia,” said,—
“And as glasses have highly promoted our seeing, so ’tis not improbable but that there may be found many mechanical inventions to improve our other senses, of hearing, smelling, tasting, touching. ’Tis not impossible to hear a whisper at a furlong’s distance, it having been already done; and perhaps the nature of the thing would not make it more impossible, though that furlong should be ten times multiplyed. And though some famous authors have affirmed it impossible to hear through the thinnest plate of Muscovy glass; yet I know a way by which ’tis easie enough to hear one speak through a wall a yard thick. It has not been yet thoroughly examin’d how far Otocousticons may be improv’d, nor what other ways there may be of quick’ning our hearing, or conveying sound through other bodies then [than] the air: for that is not the only medium. I can assure the reader, that I have, by the help of a distended wire propagated the sound to a very considerable distance in an instant, or with as seemingly quick a motion as that of light, at least incomparably swifter then [than] that which at the same time was propagated through the air; and this not only in a straight line, or direct, but in one bended in many angles.”
Stenography
A curious little book has been dug from out the dust of two centuries, and has been partially republished by the German newspapers for the purpose of proving that there is nothing new under the sun. The little book is entitled “Foolish Wisdom and Wise Foolishness,” and was written by an old-fashioned German political economist named Becher. At the time of its publication the book was regarded as something of a Munchausen narrative of the author’s travels through Europe. During his wanderings Becher became acquainted with most of the learned men on the Continent, and acquired much information concerning the scientific work of his day. He describes crude conceptions of the phonograph and the telephone by a Nuremburg optician named Fraur Gründler. He gives foreshadowings of an air-gun, aërial navigation, a universal language like Volapuk, and other things which would have gladdened Wendell Phillips when he was preparing his famous lecture on “The Lost Arts.”
During his tour of inquiry Becher discovered that in several regions outside of Germany many men had learned “to write down what others said, with wonderful rapidity, by means of strange characters.” “Englishmen have discovered a kind of tachygraphy,” he explains, “or an art which enables them to write as rapidly as the fastest speakers can talk. They have brought this wonderful art to such a degree of perfection that young persons often write out full sermons without a mistake. Orations in Parliament can be written out by this means as rapidly as they are delivered, which I regard as a very useful invention.” So much for stenography two centuries ago.
The Great Fire of London
The ever-memorable fire which destroyed fifteen of the twenty-six wards of the city of London, an area of four hundred and thirty-six acres, broke out at two o’clock on Sunday morning, September 2, 1666. On the preceding Friday London was forewarned of this calamity by a Quaker from Huntingdon, named Thomas Ibbott. Entering London on horseback, he dismounted and turned his horse loose; then, unbuttoning his garments, he ran about the streets, scattering his money and crying out, “So should they run up and down scattering their goods, half-undressed, like mad people, as he was a sign to them,”—a prediction to which no attention was paid at the time, but which was verified during the four days’ conflagration.
The Plague of London
Astrology, with its terrestrial theory of the heavens, its belief in planetary influences upon the earth and its inhabitants, and the arbitrary signification it gave to the astral bodies, singly or in conjunction, was largely concerned with the propagation of superstition. It accounted for and predicted the great plague of London, in 1665, by a conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in Sagittarius on the 10th of October, and a conjunction of Saturn and Mars in the same sign on the 12th of November. It took no note of the real causes of that and all other pestilences,—accumulation of sewage and filth, contamination of air and water, effluvia from putrefactive matter, noxious gases, soil exhalations, and overcrowding of man and beast. If, however, in his dealings with simple unsupported superstition the astrologer failed in his reasoning and his conclusions, we must credit him with laborious attempts to find some rationale.