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`telegraphy, to the year 1837 John Joseph Fahie
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`A historyof electric
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`ENGINESRING
`LIBRARY
`TT
`SHS
`FE
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`A HISTORY
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`ELECTRIC TELEGRAPHY,
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`TO THE YEAR 1837.
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`A HISTORY
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`OF
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`ELECTRIC TELEGRAPHY,
`
`TO THE YEAR 1837.
`
`CHIEFLY COMPILED FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES, AND
`HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED DOCUMENTS.
`
`BY
`
`os
`J. Js*FAHIE,
`
`MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY OF TELEGRAPH-ENGINEERS AND ELECTRICIANS, LONDON;
`AND OF THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY OF ELECTRICIANS, PARIS.
`
`** Their line is gone out through all the earth,
`Andtheir words to the end of the world.”
`Psalms xix. 4.
`
`LONDON:
`E. & F. N. SPON, 16, CHARING CROSS.
`NEW YORK: 35, MURRAY STREET.
`
`1884.
`
`All rights reserved.
`Digitized by Google
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`Dedicated
`
`To
`
`LATIMER CLARK, ESQUIRE,
`
`M.1.C.Boy FR-GSy FMS. PAST PRES. ST.E. AND BE
`
`IN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF MANY KINDNESSES,
`
`BY HIS OBLIGED FRIEND,
`
`THE AUTHOR.
`
`Lonvon, February 1884.
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`PREFACE.
`
`—or—
`
`PLUTARCH, in the opening sentences of his Life of
`Demosthenes, says : — “ Whosoever shall design to
`write a history, consisting of materials which must be
`gathered from observation, and the reading of authors
`not easy to be hadnorwrit in his own native language,
`but manyof them foreign and dispersed in other hands:
`for him it is in the first place and aboveall things
`most necessary to reside in somecity of good note and
`fame, addicted to the liberal arts, and populous, where
`he mayhave plenty ofall sorts of books, and, upon
`inquiry, may hear and inform himself of such parti-
`_culars aS, having escaped the pensof writers, are yet
`faithfully preserved in the memories of men;
`lest
`otherwise he publish a work deficient in many things,
`and those such as are necessary to its perfection.”
`Had we seen this passage a few years ago, the
`following pages had, probably, never been written, and
`there would be no need for this preface. The work
`was begun and broughtto a very forwardstate, not in
`some city of good note and fame, where plenty of
`books were to be had, but in what has been rightly
`
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`called “the confines of the earth—the hot regions of
`Persia,” and under circumstances which, we think, will
`bearrelating.
`In our youthful days we contracted two habits,
`which have been ever since the bane or the solace (we
`hardly know which to call them) of our existence,
`viz. a taste for writing, and a taste for scraps. The
`Cacoéthes Scribendi first attacked us, and wecanrecall
`letters in the local papers on various topics of local
`interest, all of which were written early in our teens.
`When about sixteen years of age we commenced a
`history of the old castles and churches which abound
`(in ruins) in and aboutournative place, the said history
`being intended to serve also as a guide for tourists who
`were constantly visiting the neighbourhood. With great
`industry we got together, in time, some two hundred
`pages (foolscap) of writing; but the work was never
`completed.
`For years we hawked the MS. about,
`latterly never looking at it, having come to regard it
`as a standing reproach for time and money misspent;
`and at last, ina fit of remorse, we gave the papers to
`the flames in 1875.
`Soon after joining the telegraph service, in 1865, our
`archeological bent
`took another turn, and we now
`began to collect books and scraps on electricity,
`magnetism, and their applications—particularly to
`telegraphy, and with the same industrious ardour as
`before.
`In December 1867, we entered the Persian
`Gulf Telegraph Department under the Governmentof
`
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`ix
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`India, where, having a good deal of spare time on our
`hands, we indulged our habits to the full.
`In 1871,
`having amassed a large numberof notes, scraps, &c.,
`on submarine telegraphy, we began a work on the
`history and working of the Persian Gulf cables, of
`which we had then had over three years’ practical
`experience.
`Gradually this developed itself into an ambitious
`treatise, which we styled “Submarine Telegraphs,
`their Construction, Submersion, and Maintenance,
`including their Testing and Practical Working.” Of
`this some three hundred pages (foolscap) are now
`lying “ submerged ”in the depths of our trunk,to be,
`perhaps, “recovered” at some future day—if, haply,
`they do not share the fate of our History of Ruins!
`Unfortunately for us, at least from a book-selling
`point of view, our old taste for archzology,after lying
`dormant for years,
`reasserted itself, and, about six
`years ago, we found ourselves in the design of writing
`a history of telegraphy from the time of Adam down
`to our own! For this we had a pile of notes and
`paper cuttings—the accumulation of a dozen years,
`but few books (books are heavy and awkward baggage
`for one of our necessarily semi-nomadic life). How-
`ever, with our materials we built up a tolerably fleshy
`skeleton (if we may so speak), which, on our arrival
`in England at the close of 1882, after nearly fifteen
`years’ absence, we showed to somefriends.
`They advised usto fill up the gaps and bring out
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`our book immediately. The first was easy of accom-
`plishment, with the use of the splendid technical
`libraries of Mr. Latimer Clark and of the Society of
`Telegraph-Engineers and Electricians, and with an
`occasional reference to the British Museum; but to
`find a publisher, #4a¢ was not so easy. Publishers,
`now as always, fight shy of Dryasdust, and the two
`or three whom we tried asked us to bring them
`something new, for, owing to the machinations of us,
`Electrical Engineers, the world was going at lightning
`speed, and hadnotimeto look back.
`Ultimately we paid a visit to the Editor of Zhe
`Electrician, told him of our discomfiture, showed him
`our MSS., and repeated an offer that we had made him
`~ years before, from Persia, but which he then declined,
`vig., to publish our articles from week to week in his
`paper. The Editor did not take long to decide; he
`would only, however, accept the electrical portion, the
`non-electric part which deals with fire-, flag-, and
`semaphore- signalling, acoustic, pneumatic, and hy-
`draulic telegraphs, &c., &c., being, he said, unsuited
`for his journal. - On the principle that half a loaf is
`better than no bread, we concluded arrangements
`there and then, and parted with our new-found friend
`with feelings which time has butintensified.
`The present volumeis a collection, with very few
`alterations, of the articles which have regularly ap-
`peared in The Electrician for the last twelve months.
`Of these alterations the only ones worth mentioning
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`xi
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`will be found in our chapters on Mr. Edward Davy ;
`we have made ouraccountof his electro-chemicalre-
`cording telegraph a little fuller, and have added some
`new matter lately acquired (1) from recent letters of
`Mr. Davy himself, (2) from an examination of the
`private papers of the late Sir William Fothergill
`Cooke—a privilege for which we are indebted to our
`kind friend, Mr. Latimer Clark, and (3)
`from Mr.
`W. H. Thornthwaite, of London, an old pupil of
`Edward Davy, whose very interesting reminiscences,
`we feel sure, will be scanned with pleasure by all our
`readers.
`Nowas to the plan of the work. We have divided
`the history of electricity into three parts, (1) static, or
`frictional, electricity, (2) dynamic, or galvanic,electri-
`city, and (3) electro-magnetism and magneto-electricity.
`We have brought our account of each part down to
`the year 1837, confining ourselves to a notice of such
`facts and principles only as are employed in the
`various telegraphic proposals that follow. These, in
`their turn, are divided into three classes, electrical,
`galvanic (chemical), and electro-magnetic ; and each
`class, treated chronologically, follows naturally the
`corresponding part of the history of electricity. The
`whole is preceded by a full account of what we have
`called a foreshadowing of the electric telegraph, and is
`followed by an appendix, containing (A) a clear and
`correct statement of Professor Joseph Henry’slittle-
`known connection with electric telegraplty, which is
`
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`xii
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`Preface.
`
`for which we
`to be omitted, but
`too important
`could not conveniently find room in the body of the
`work, and (B) a few pages supplementary of our
`chapters on Edward Davy.
`In limiting ourselves to the year 1837, we have done
`so advisedly, for, to attempt even the barest outline
`of what has been accomplished since then would
`occupy volumes. Our object has been,as it were, to
`make a special survey of a river from its rise away in
`some tiny spring to its mouth in the mighty ocean,
`marking down,as we camealong, thoseof the tributary
`streams and such other circumstances as specially
`interested us. Arrived at the mouth, the traveller who
`wishes for further exploration has only to chose his
`pilot ; for, fortunately, there is no lack of these. We
`have Highton, Lardner, Sabine, and Culley in England;
`Shaffner, Prescott, and Reid in America; Moigno,
`Blavier, and du Moncel
`in France; Schellen, and
`Zetzsche in Germany ; Saavedra in Spain, and many
`- others in various parts of the world whose names need
`not be specially mentioned.
`As we havein the body of the work given full refer-
`ences for every important statement,
`it will not be
`necessary to acknowledge here the sources of our in-
`formation ; indeed it would be simply impossible to
`do so within the limits of a preface which we feel
`is
`already too long. Like Moliére, we have taken our
`materials wherever we could find them, andit is no
`exaggeration to say that in pursuit of our subject we
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`xiii
`
`have laid many hundreds of volumes undertribute;
`some have given us clues, some have been mines of
`wealth, others have yielded nothing at all, while,
`what was worse, a goodly number were of the iguss
`fatuus kind—false accounts, false dates, false refer-
`ences, false everything—which worried us consider-
`ably, and over which we lost much precious time.
`Wegladly, however, take this opportunity of thank-
`ing Messrs.
`Ispolatoff
`(Russia), D’Amico (Italy),
`Aylmer(France), Sémmerring (Germany), and Collette
`(Holland), for their assistance, of which,as they will
`see, we have made good use in the text. To our
`friend, Mr. Latimer Clark, our debt is too heavy for
`liquidation and must remain. He has not only given
`us the free use of his magnificent library, but has aided
`and encouraged. us with his advice and sympathy,
`and, in the most generous manner, has placed at our
`disposalall his private notes. These, we need hardly
`say, have been of great use to us, and would have
`been of greater still had we seen them atan earlier
`stage of our researches,
`As we have to return almost immediately to “the
`confines of the earth,” the preparation of the index
`has been kindly undertaken by ourfriend, Mr. A.J.
`Frost, Librarian of the Society of Telegraph-Engineers
`and Electricians, whose name will be a sufficient
`guarantee for the accuracyand completeness of the
`work.
`In tendering him our cordial thanks for this
`assistance, we have much pleasure in recording our
`
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`appreciation of the zeal, ability, and unvarying courtesy
`with which he performs the duties of his office. His
`bibliographical knowledge is great and special, and
`has at all times been freely placed at our disposal.
`Our book, we hope, will give the coup de gréce to
`many popular errors. Thus, we show that Watson,
`Franklin, Cavendish, and Volta did not suggest elec-
`tric telegraphs (pp. 60, 66, and 82); that Galvani was
`not thefirst to observe the fundamental phenomenon
`of what we now call galvanism (pp. 175-9); that his
`experiments in this field were not suggested by a
`preparation of frog-broth (pp. 180-3); that not Daniell
`but Dobereiner and Becquerel first employed two-fluid
`cells with membranous or porouspartitions (p. 215) ;
`that not Sémmerring but Salva first proposed a gal-
`vanic (chemical) telegraph (p. 220) ; that not Schilling
`but Salvd first suggested a submarine cable (p. 105);
`that Romagnosi did not discover electro-magnetism
`(p. 257); that not Ritter but Gautherotfirst described
`the secondary battery (p. 267) ; that not Cumming nor
`Nobili but Ampére first invented the astatic needle
`(p. 280); that not Seebeck but Dessaignes first dis-
`covered thermo-electricity (p. 297) ; that not Thomson
`but Gauss and Weberfirst constructed the mirror
`galvanometer (p. 319);
`that
`the use of the earth
`circuit
`in telegraphy was clearly and intelligently
`suggested by an Englishman long before Steinheil
`made his accidental discovery of it
`(p. 345);. and
`that not Cooke. and Wheatstone, nor Morse, but
`
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`XV
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`Henry in America and Edward Davy in England
`first applied the principle of the relay—a principle
`of the utmost importance in telegraphy (pp. 359, 511,
`and 515).
`There may be some amongst our readers whowill
`not thank us for upsetting their belief on these and
`many other points of lesser importance, and who may
`even call us bad names, as did Professor Leslie on a
`former occasion, and @ propos of somebody’s quoting
`Swammerdam’s and Sulzer’s experiments (pp. 175
`and 178) as suggestive of galvanism. Leslie says :—
`‘Such facts are curious and deserveattention, but
`every honourable mind mustpity or scorn that invi-
`dious spirit with which some unhappy jackals hunt
`after imperfect and neglected anticipations with a view
`of detracting from the merit of full discovery”
`(Ency. Brit. 8th edition, vol. i. p. 739). For our part
`we can honestly say that in drawing up ourhistory
`we have not been influenced by any such views;
`our sole object has been to tell the truth, the whole
`truth, to
`
`“nothing extenuate,
`Nor set down aught in malice.”
`
`It is possible, however, that with the best intentions
`we may, either by omission or commission, be guilty
`of some unfairness ; and if our readers will only show
`us wherein we have transgressed, we will be ready to
`make the amende if they will kindly afford us an
`opportunity—in a second edition.
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`xvi
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`Preface.
`
`Webegan our preface with an apology, we will
`end it with an appeal. We borrowed the one from
`Plutarch, Newton shall supply the other. At the
`close of the preface to his immortal Principia he
`says :—“I earnestly entreat that all may be read
`with candour, and that my labours may be examined
`not so much with a view to censure as to supply their
`defects.”
`
`THE AUTHOR.
`
`Lonpon, February 1834.
`
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`CONTENTS.
`
`FORESHADOWING OF THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH
`
`CHAPTERI.
`
`PAGE
`
`CHAPTERII.
`
`STATIC, OR FRICTIONAL, ELECTRICITY—HISTORY IN
`RELATION TO TELEGRAPHY ..
`«2
`«+
`«8
`oF
`«8
`
`26
`
`CHAPTERIII.
`
`TELEGRAPHS BASED ON STATIC, OR FRICTIONAL,
`ELECTRICITY
`4.)
`so
`se
`oe eet
`
`CHAPTERIV.
`
`TELEGRAPHS BASED ON STATIC, OR FRICTIONAL,
`ELECTRICITY (continued)
` ..
`..
`
`109
`
`CHAPTERV.
`
`TELEGRAPHS BASED ON STATIC, OR FRICTIONAL,
`ELECTRICITY (continued)
`oo
`be tee
`
`146
`
`CHAPTERVI.
`
`DyNAMIC ELECTRICITY—HISTORY IN RELATION TO
`TELEGRAPHY
`..Q
`.-
`oo «06 se
`60 eee
`b
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`169
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`XVIli
`
`Contents.
`
`CHAPTER VII.
`
`DYNAMIC ELECTRICITY—HISTORY IN RELATION TO
`TELEGRAPHY(continued)
`eee wee wwe
`
`PAGE
`
`8G
`
`CHAPTERVIII.
`
`TELEGRAPHS (CHEMICAL) BASED ON DYNAMIC ELEC-
`TRICITY...
`
`220
`
`CHAPTER IX.
`
`ELECTRO-MAGNETISM AND MAGNETO-ELECTRICITY—
`HISTORY IN RELATION TO TELEGRAPHY..
`
`250
`
`CHAPTER X.
`
`ELECTRO-MAGNETISM AND MAGNETO-ELECTRICITY—
`HISTORY IN RELATION TO TELEGRAPHY(continued)
`
`275
`
`CHAPTER XI.
`
`TELEGRAPHS BASED ON ELECTRO-MAGNETISM AND
`MAGNETO-ELECTRICITY..
`
`302
`
`CHAPTER XII.
`
`TELEGRAPHS BASED ON ELECTRO-MAGNETISM AND
`MAGNETO-ELECTRICITY (continued)
`
`326
`
`CHAPTER XIII.
`
`EDWARD Davy AND THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH,
`1836-1839
`«2
`ee eet we
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`Contents.
`
`CHAPTER XIV.
`
`x1X
`
`PAGE
`
`EDWARD Davy AND THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH,
`1836-1839 (continued)
`6.
`uu cee te
`ewe 5379
`
`CHAPTER XV.
`
`EDWARD Davy AND THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH,
`1836-1839 (comfimucd)
`=...
`on
`we ees we
`we AG
`
`CHAPTER XVI.
`
`TELEGRAPHS BASED ON ELECTRO-MAGNETISM AND
`MAGNETO-ELECTRICITY (continued)
`..
`..
`..
`..
`
`448
`
`TELEGRAPHS BASED ON ELECTRO-MAGNETISM AND
`
`
`MAGNETO-ELECTRICITY(continued) ..9«6 6.) 6.) 477
`
`
`
`
`CHAPTER XVII.
`
`APPENDIX A.—Re PROFESSOR JOSEPH HENRY ..
`
`APPENDIX B.—e MR. EDWARD Davy..
`
`..
`
`..
`
`..
`
`«
`
`495
`
`516
`
`BIBLIOGRAPHY
`
`os
`
`ee
`
`ewe
`
`we
`
`te
`
`we wwe
`
`3K
`
`INDEX
`
`seas eee wwe eee 537
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`26
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`27
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`Page 27 of 595
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`
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`A
`
`HISTORY
`
`OF
`
`ELECTRIC TELEGRAPHY
`
`TO THE YEAR 1837.
`
`epee
`
`CHAPTER I.
`
`FORESHADOWING OF THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.
`
`‘¢ Whatever draws me on,
`Or sympathy, or some connatural force,
`Powerful at greatest distance to unite,
`With secret amity, things of like kind,
`By secretest conveyance.”
`Milton, Paradise Lost, x. 246.
`
`1667.
`
`AMONGSTthe manyflights of imagination, by which
`genius has often anticipated the achievements of her
`more deliberate and cautious sister, earth-walking
`reason, none, perhaps, is more striking than the story
`of the sympathetic needles, which was so prevalentin
`the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries,
`and which so beautifully foreshadowed the invention
`of the electric telegraph.* This romantic tale had
`
`——_
`
`* ‘Tn the dream of the Elector Frederick of Saxony, in 1517, the
`curious reader may like to disce another dim glimmering, a more
`shadowy foreshadowing, of the electric telegraph, whose hosts of iron
`B
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`A History of Electric Telegraphy
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`reference to a sort of magnetic telegraph, based on f
`the sympathy which was supposed to exist between|
`needles that had been touched by the same magnet,
`or loadstone, whereby an intercourse could be main-
`tained between distant friends, since every movement
`imparted to one needle would immediately induce, by
`sympathy, similar movements in the other. As a
`history of telegraphy would be manifestly incom-
`plete without a reference to this fabulous contrivance,
`we propose to deal with it at some length in the
`present chapter.
`For the first suggestions of the sympathetic needle
`telegraph we must go back a very long way, probably
`to the date of the discovery of the magnet’s attraction
`for iron. At any rate, we believe that we have found
`traces of it in the working of the oracles of pagan
`Greece and Rome. Thus, we read in Maimbourg’s
`Histoire de [Arianisme(Paris, 1686)* :—
`
`In
`and copper ‘pens’ reach to-day the farthest ends of the earth.
`this strange dream Martin Luther appeared writing upon the door of
`the Palace Chapel at Wittemburg. The pen with which he wrote
`seemed so long that its feather end reached to Rome, and ran fulltilt
`against the Pope’s tiara, which his holiness was at the moment wearing.
`Onseeing the danger, the cardinals and princes of the State ran up to
`support the tottering crown, and, one after another, tried to break the
`pen, but tried in vain.
`It crackled, as if made of iron, and could not
`be broken. While all were wondering at its strength a loud cry arose,
`and from the monk’s long pen issued a host of others.”—L£iccfricity
`and the Electric Telegraph, by Dr. George Wilson, London, 1852,
`pe §9; or D'Aubigne’s Aéstory ofthe Reformation, chap. iv. book iii,
`* English translation of 1728, by the Rev. W. Webster, chap. vi.
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`“Whilst Valens [the Roman Emperor] was at
`Antioch in his third. consulship,
`in the year 370,
`several pagans of distinction, with the philosophers
`who were in so great reputation under Julian, not
`being able to bear that the empire should continue
`in the hands of the Christians, consulted privately the
`demons, by the means of conjurations, in order to
`know the destiny of the emperor, and who should be
`his successor, persuading themselves that the oracle
`would namea person who shouldrestore the worship
`of the gods. For this purpose they made a three-
`footed stool of laurel
`in imitation of the tripos at
`Delphos, upon which having laid a basin of divers
`metals they placed the twenty-four letters of the
`alphabet round it; then oneof these philosophers, who
`was a magician, being wrapped up in a large mantle,
`and his head covered, holding in one hand vervain,
`and in the other a ring, which hung at the end of a
`small thread, pronounced some execrable conjurations
`in order to invoke the devils; at which the three-
`footed stool
`turning round, and the ring moving of
`itself, and turning from one side to the other over the
`letters, it caused them to fall upon the table, and place
`themselves near each other, whilst the persons who
`were present set down the like letters in their table-
`books,till their answer was delivered in heroic verse,
`which foretold them that their criminal inquiry would
`cost them their lives, and that the Furies were waiting
`for the emperor at Mimas, where he was to die of a
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`A Fiistory of Electric Telegraphy
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`horrid kind of death [he was subsequently burntalive
`by the Goths]; after which the enchanted ring turning
`about again over the letters, in order to express the
`name of him who should succeed the emperor, formed
`first of all
`these three characters, TH EO; then
`having added a D to form THEODthering stopped,
`and was not seen to move any more; at which oneof
`the assistants cried out in a transport of joy, ‘We must
`not doubt any longer of it; Theodorus is the person
`whom the gods appoint for our emperor.’ ”
`If, as it must be admitted, the modus operand:is not
`here very clear, we can still carry back our subject to
`the sameearly date, in citing an experiment on mag-
`netic attractions which was certainly popular in the
`days of St. Augustine, 354-430.
`In his De Crvttate Dei, which was written about
`413, he tells us that, being one day onavisit to a
`bishop named Severus, he saw him take a magnetic
`stone and hold it undera silver plate, on which he had
`thrown a piece of iron, which followed exactly all the
`movements of the hand in which the loadstone was
`held. He addsthat, at the time of his writing, he had
`under his eyes a vessel filled with water, placed on a
`table six inches thick, and containing a needle floating
`on cork, which he could movefrom side to side accord-
`ing to the movements of a magnetic stone held under
`the table.*®
`Leonardus (Camillus), in his Speculum Lapidum,
`* Basile, 1522, pp. 718-19.
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`&c., 1502, verbo MAGNES,refers to this experiment as
`one familiar to mariners, and Blasius de Vigenere,in
`his annotations of Livy, says that a letter might be
`read through a stone wall three feet thick, by guiding,
`by means of a loadstone or magnet, the needle of a
`compass overthe letters of the alphabet written in the
`circumference.*
`From such experiments as these the sympathetic
`telegraph was but a step, involving only the supposi-
`tion that the same effects might be possible at a
`greater distance, but when, or by whom,this step was
`first taken it
`is now difficult
`to say.
`It has been
`traced back to Baptista Porta, the celebrated Neapo-
`litan philosopher, and in all probability originated
`with him ; for in the same book in which he announces
`the conceit he describes the above experiment of
`St. Augustine, and other “wonders of the magnet”;
`adding that the impostors of his time abused by these
`means the credulity of the people, by arranging around
`a basin of water, on which a magnet floated, certain
`words to serve as answers to the questions which
`superstitious persons might put to them onthe future.f
`
`* Les Cing Premiers Livres de Tite Live, Paris, 1576, vol.
`i. col.
`riWhile itis generally admitted that magnetism has conferred incal-
`
`culable benefits on mankind (witness only the mariner’s compass), we
`have never yet seen it stated that it has at the same time contributed
`more to our bamboozlement than any other, we might almost say all, of
`the physical sciences, With the charlatans in all ages and nations, its
`mysterious powers have ever been fruitful sources of imposture, some-
`times harmless, sometimes not. Thus, from the iron crook of the
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`Hethen concludes the 21st chapter with the following
`words, which, so far as yet discovered, contain thefirst
`clear enunciation of the sympathetic needle telegraph :
`— Lastly, owing to the convenience afforded by the
`magnet, persons can converse together through long
`distances.” *
`In the edition of 1589 he is even more
`explicit, and says in the preface to the seventh book:
`“I do not fear that with a long absent friend, even
`though he be confined byprison walls, we can com-
`municate what we wish by means of two compass
`needles circumscribed with an alphabet.”
`.
`The next person who mentions this curious notion
`was Daniel Schwenter, who wrote under the assumed
`name of Johannes Hercules de Sunde.
`In his Stega-
`nologia et Steganographia, published at Niirnberg in
`1600, he says, p. 127:— “Inasmuch as this is a
`wonderful secret I have hitherto hesitated about
`divulging it, and for this reason disguised my remarks
`in the first edition of my book so as only to be under-
`
`Greek shepherd Magnes, and the magnetic mountains of the geo-
`grapher Ptolemy, to the magnetic trains of early railway enthusiasts ;
`from the magnetically protected coffin of Confucius to the magnetically
`suspended one of Mahomed ; from the magnetic powders and potions
`of the ancients, and the metal discs, rods, and unguents of the old
`magnetisers,
`to the magnetic belts of the new—the modern panacea
`for all theills that flesh is heir to; from the magnetic telegraphs of the
`sixteenth century to the Gary and Hosmer perpetual motors of the
`nineteenth, ef oc genus omne ; all these impostures are, or were, based
`entirely on the (supposed) force of magnetic attraction, to which must
`be added an unconscionable amountofignorance or credulity,
`* Magia Naturals, p. 88,'Naples, 1558.
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`I will
`stood by learned chemists and physicians.
`now, however, communicate it for the benefit of the
`lovers of science generally.” He then goes on to
`describe, in true cabalistic fashion, the preparation of
`
`Fic, 1.
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`De Sunde’s dial as given in Schott’s Schola Steganographica.
`
`the two compasses, the needles of which were to be
`made diamond-shaped from the same piece of steel
`and magnetised by the same magnet, or
`rather,
`magnets,
`for
`there were four:
`1, Almagrito; 2,
`Theamedes ; 3, Almaslargont ; 4, Calamitro ; which
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`imparted south, north, east, and west-turning pro-
`perties respectively to the needles.) The compass-
`cards were divided off into compartments, each con-
`taining four letters of the alphabet, and each letter
`was indicated by the needle pointing, from one to
`four times, to the division in which it stood. Thus,
`the letter C would be indicated by three movements
`of the needle to the first division of the card. The
`needles were actuated by bar magnets, or chadids,
`and attention was called by the ringing of a tiny
`bell, which was so placed in the way of the needle
`that at each deflection of the latter it was struck,
`and so continued to ring until
`removed by the
`correspondent,
`The next and most widely known relation of
`the story occurs in the Prolustones Academica," of
`Famianus Strada, a learned Italian Jesuit,
`first
`published at Rome in 1617, and often reprinted
`since. Although the idea did not originate with
`Strada (for he seems to attribute it
`to Cardinal
`Bembo, who died about 1547), he was certainly, as
`Sir Thomas Browne quaintly says, “The @olus
`that blew it about,” for his Prolustones had long
`been a favourite classic, while the passage referring
`to the loadstone has, if we may say so, been con-
`tinually going the rounds of the newspapers.
`It
`is quoted more or less fully in many authors of
`the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
`famous
`
`* Lib.ii, prol. 6.
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`amongst whom are Hakewill,* Addison,t Akenside,{
`and “ Misographos.” §
`in the present century are
`The references to it
`simply too numerous to mention. The following is
`the latest English version, which, with the original
`Latin, appeared in the Telegraphic Journal,
`for
`November15, 1875 :—
`“ There is a wonderful kind of magnetic stone to
`which if you bring in contact several bodies of iron or
`dial-pins, from thence they will not only derive a force
`and motion by which they will always try to turn
`themselves to the bear which shines nearthepole, but,
`also, by a strange method and fashion between each
`other, as manydial-pins as have touched that stone,
`you will see them all agree in the sameposition and
`motion, so that if, by chance, one of these be observed
`at Rome, another, although it may be removed a long
`way off, turns itself in the same direction by a secret
`law of its nature. Therefore try the experiment,if
`you desire a frien