[KANSAS CITY REVIEW.]
EARLY HISTORY OF THE TELEGRAPH.
Although the electric telegraph is, comparatively speaking, a recent invention, yet methods of communication at a distance, by means of signals, have probably existed in all ages and in all nations. There is reason to believe that among the Greeks a system of telegraphy was in use, as the burning of Troy was certainly known in Greece very soon after it happened, and before any person had returned from Troy. Polybius names the different instruments used by the ancients for communicating information—"pyrsia," because the signals were always made by means of fire lights. At first they communicated information of events in an imperfect manner, but a new method was invented by Cleoxenus, which was much improved by Polybius, as he himself informs us, and which may be described as follows:
Take the letters of the alphabet and arrange them on a board in five columns, each column containing five letters; then the man who signals would hold up with his left hand a number of torches which would represent the number of the column from which the letter is to be taken, and with his right hand a number of torches that will represent the particular letter in that column that is to be taken. It is thus easy to understand how the letters of a short sentence are communicated from station to station as far as required. This is the pyrsia or telegraph of Polybius.
It seems that the Romans had a method of telegraphing in their walled cities, either by a hollow formed in the masonry, or by a tube fixed thereto so as to confine the sound, in order to convey information to any part they liked. This method of communicating is in the present age frequently employed in the well known speaking tubes. It does not appear that the moderns had thought of such a thing as a telegraph until 1661, when the Marquis of Worcester, in his "Century of Inventions," affirmed that he had discovered a method by which a man could hold discourse with his correspondent as far as they could reach, by night as well as by day; he did not, however, describe this invention.
Dr. Hooke delivered a discourse before the Royal Society in 1684, showing how to communicate at great distances. In this discourse he asserts the possibility of conveying intelligence from one place to another at a distance of 120 miles as rapidly as a man can write what he would have sent. He takes to his aid the then recent invention of the telescope, and explains how characters exposed at one station on the top of one hill may be made visible to the next station on the top of the next hill. He invented twenty-four simple characters, each formed of a combination of three deal boards, each character representing a letter by the use of cords; these characters were pushed from behind a screen and exposed, and then withdrawn behind the screen again. It was not, however, until the French revolution that the telegraph was applied to practical purposes; but about the end of 1703 telegraphic communication was established between Paris and the frontiers, and shortly afterward telegraphs were introduced into England.
The history of the invention and introduction of the electric telegraph by Prof. Morse is one of inexhaustible interest, and every incident relating to it is worthy of preservation. The incidents described below will be found of special interest. The article is from the pen of the late Judge Neilson Poe, and was the last paper written by him. He prepared it during his recent illness, the letter embodied in it from Mr. Latrobe being of course obtained at the time of its date. It is as follows:
On the 5th of April, 1843, when the monthly meeting of the directors of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company was about to adjourn, the President, the Hon. Louis McLane, rose with a paper in his hand which he said he had almost overlooked, and which the Secretary would read. It proved to be an application from Prof. Morse for the privilege of laying the wires of his electric telegraph along the line of the railroad between Baltimore and Washington, and was accompanied by a communication from B.H. Latrobe, Esq., Chief Engineer, recommending the project as worthy of encouragement.