Part 10

Of his offer to establish a communication from the coast of Cork to Dublin, at _his own expense_, no notice was taken. "He had, as was known to Government, expended £500 of his own money; as much more would have erected a temporary establishment for a year to Cork. Thus the utility of this invention might have been tried, and the most prudent government upon earth could not have accused itself of extravagance in being partner with a private gentleman in an experiment which had, with inferior apparatus, and at four times the expense, been tried in France and England, and approved." The most favorable supposition by which we can account for the conduct of the Irish Government in this business is that a superior influence in England forbade them to proceed. "It must," said my father, "be mortifying to a viceroy who comes over to Ireland with enlarged views and benevolent intentions, to discover, when he attempts to act for himself, that he is peremptorily checked; that a circle is chalked round him, beyond which he cannot move."

No personal feelings of pique or disgust prevented my father from renewing his efforts to be of service to his country. Two months after the rejection of his telegraph, on Friday the 30th of December, 1796, the French were on the Irish coasts. Of this he received intelligence late at night. Immediately he sent a servant express to the Secretary, with a letter offering to erect telegraphs, which he had in Dublin, on any line that Government should direct, and proposing to bring his own men with him; or to join the army with his portable telegraphs, to reconnoitre. His servant was sent back with a note from the Secretary, containing compliments and the promise of a speedy answer; no further answer ever reached him. Upon this emergency he could, with the assistance of his friends, have established an immediate communication between Dublin and the coast, which should not have cost the country one shilling. My father showed no mortification at the neglect with which he was treated, but acknowledged that he felt much "concern in losing an opportunity of saving an enormous expense to the public, and of alleviating the anxiety and distress of thousands." A telegraph was most earnestly wished for at this time by the best-informed people in Ireland, as well as by those whose perceptions had suddenly quickened at the view of immediate danger. Great distress, bankruptcies, and ruin to many families, were the consequences of this attempted invasion. The troops were harassed with contrary orders and forced marches, for want of intelligence, and from that indecision which must always be the consequence of insufficient information. Many days were spent in terror and in fruitless wishes for the English fleet. One fact may mark the hurry and confusion of the time; the cannon and the ball sent to Bantry Bay were of different calibre. At last Ireland was providentially saved by the change of wind, which prevented the enemy from effecting a landing on her coast.

That the public will feel little interest in the danger of an invasion of Ireland which might have happened in the last century; that it can be of little consequence to the public to hear how or why, twenty years ago, this or that man's telegraph was not established,--I am aware; and I am sensible that few will care how cheaply it might have been obtained, or will be greatly interested in hearing of generous offers which were not accepted, and patriotic exertions which were not permitted to be of any national utility. I know that as a biographer I am expected to put private feelings out of the question; and this duty, as far as human nature will permit, I hope I have performed.

The facts are stated from my own knowledge, and from a more detailed account in his own "Letter to Lord Charlemont on the Telegraph,"--a political pamphlet, uncommon at least for its temperate and good-humored tone.

Though all his exertions to establish a telegraph in Ireland were at this time unsuccessful, yet he persevered in the belief that in future modes of telegraphic communication would be generally adopted; and instead of his hopes being depressed, they were raised and expanded by new consideration of the subject in a scientific light. In the sixth volume of the "Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy," he published an "Essay on the Art of Conveying Swift and Secret Intelligence," in which he gives a comprehensive view of the uses to which the system may be applied, and a description, with plates, of his own machinery. Accounts of his apparatus and specimens of his vocabulary have been copied into various popular publications, therefore it is sufficient here to refer to them. The peculiar advantages of his machinery consist, in the first place, in being as free from friction as possible, consequently in its being easily moved, and not easily destroyed by use; in the next place, on its being simple, consequently easy to make and to repair. The superior advantage of his vocabulary arises from its being undecipherable. This depends on his employing the numerical figures instead of the alphabet. With a power of almost infinite change, and consequently with defiance of detection, he applies the combination of numerical figures to the words of a common dictionary, or to any length of phrase in any given vocabulary. He was the first who made this application of figures to telegraphic communication.

Much has been urged by various modern claimants for the honor of the invention of the telegraph. In England the claims of Dr. Hooke and of the Marquis of Worcester to the original idea are incontestable. But the invention long lay dormant, till wakened into active service by the French. Long before the French telegraph appeared, my father had tried his first telegraphic experiments. As he mentions in his own narrative, he tried the use of windmill sails in 1767 in Berkshire; and also a nocturnal telegraph with lamps and illuminated letters, between London and Hampstead. He refers for the confirmation of the facts to a letter of Mr. Perrot's, a Berkshire gentleman who was with him at the time. The original of this letter is now in my possession. It was shown in 1795 to the President of the Royal Irish Academy. The following is a copy of it:--

DEAR SIR,--I perfectly recollect having several conversations with you in 1767 on the subject of a speedy and secret conveyance of intelligence. I recollect your going up the hills to see how far and how distinctly the arms (and the position of them) of Nettlebed Windmill sails were to be discovered with ease.

As to the experiments from Highgate to London by means of lamps, I was not present at the time, but I remember your mentioning the circumstance to me in the same year. All these particulars were brought very strongly to my memory when the French, some years ago, conveyed intelligence by signals; and I then thought and declared that the merit of the invention undoubtedly belonged to you. I am very glad that I have it in my power to send you this confirmation, because I imagine there is no other person now living who can bear witness to your observations in Berkshire.

I remain, dear Sir,

Your affectionate friend, JAMES L. PERROT.

BATH, Dec. 9, 1795.

Claims of priority of invention are always listened to with doubt, or, at best, with impatience. To those who bring the invention to perfection, who actually adapt it to use, mankind are justly most grateful, and to these, rather than to the original inventors, grant the honors of a triumph. Sensible of this, the matter is urged no farther, but left to the justice of posterity.

I am happy to state, however, one plain fact, which stands independent of all controversy, that my father's was the _first_, and I believe the only, telegraph which ever spoke across the Channel from Ireland to Scotland. He was, as he says in his essay on this subject, "ambitious of being the first person who should connect the islands more closely by facilitating their mutual intercourse;" and on the 24th of August, 1794, my brothers had the satisfaction of sending by my father's telegraph four messages across the Channel, and of receiving immediate answers, before a vast concourse of spectators.

_Edgeworth to Dr. Darwin._

EDGEWORTHTOWN, Dec. 11, 1794.

I have been employed for two months in experiments upon a telegraph of my own invention. I tried it partially twenty-six years ago. It differs from the French in distinctness and expedition, as the intelligence is not conveyed alphabetically....

I intended to detail my telegraphs (in the plural), but I find that I have not room at present. If you think it worth while, you shall have the whole scheme before you, which I know you will improve for me. Suffice it, that by day, at eighteen or twenty miles' distance, I show, by four pointers, isosceles triangles, twenty feet high, on four imaginary circles, eight imaginary points, which correspond with the figures

0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

So that seven thousand different combinations are formed, of four figures each, which refer to a dictionary of words that are referred to,--of lists of the navy, army, militia, lords, commons, geographical and technical terms, &c, besides an alphabet. So that everything one wishes may be transmitted with expedition.

By night, white lights are used.

_Dr. Darwin to Mr. Edgeworth._

DERBY, March 15, 1795.

DEAR SIR,--I beg your pardon for not immediately answering your last favor, which was owing to the great influence the evil demon has at present in all affairs on this earth. That is, I lost your letter, and have in vain looked over some scores of papers, and cannot find it. Secondly, having lost your letter, I daily hoped to find it again--without success.

The telegraph you described I dare say would answer the purpose. It would be like a giant wielding his long arms and talking with his fingers; and those long arms might be covered with lamps in the night. You would place four or six such gigantic figures in a line, so that they should spell a whole word at once; and other such figures in sight of each other, all round the coast of Ireland; and thus fortify yourselves, instead of Friar Bacon's wall of brass round England, with the brazen head, which spoke, "Time is! Time was! Time is past!"

MR. EDGEWORTH'S MACHINE.

Having slightly mentioned the contrivances made use of by the ancients for conveying intelligence swiftly, and having pointed out some of the various important uses to which this art may be applied, I shall endeavor to give a clear view of my attempts on this subject.

Models of the French telegraph have been so often exhibited, and the machine itself is so well known, that it is not necessary to describe it minutely in this place. It is sufficient to say that it consists of a tall pole, with three movable arms, which may be seen at a considerable distance through telescopes; these arms may be set in as many different positions as are requisite to express all the different letters of the alphabet. By a successive combination of letters shown in this manner, words and sentences are formed and intelligence communicated. No doubt can be made of the utility of this machine, as it has been applied to the most important purposes. It is obviously liable to mistakes, from the number of changes requisite for each word, and from the velocity with which it must be moved to convey intelligence with any tolerable expedition.

The name, however, which is well chosen, has become so familiar, that I shall, with a slight alteration, adopt it for the apparatus which I am going to describe. _Telegraph_ is a proper name for a machine which describes at a distance. _Telelograph_, or contractedly _Tellograph_, is a proper name for a machine that describes _words_ at a distance.

Dr. Hooke, to whom every mechanic philosopher must recur, has written an essay upon the subject of conveying swift intelligence, in which he proposes to use large wooden letters in succession. The siege of Vienna turned his attention to the business. His method is more cumbrous than the French telegraph, but far less liable to error.

I tried it before I had seen Hooke's work, in the year 1767 in London, and I could distinctly read letters illuminated with lamps in Hampstead Churchyard, from the house of Mr. Elers in Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, to whom I refer for date and circumstance. To him and to Mr. E. Delaval, F.R.S., to Mr. Perrot, of Hare Hatch, and to Mr Woulfe the chemist, I refer for the precedency which I claim in this invention. In that year I invented the idea of my present tellograph, proposing to make use of windmill sails instead of the hands or pointers which I now employ. Mr. Perrot was so good as to accompany me more than once to a hill near his house to observe with a telescope the windmill at Nettlebed, which places are, I think, sixteen miles asunder. My intention at that time was to convey not only a swift but an unsuspected mode of intelligence. By means of common windmills this might have been effected, before an account of the French telegraph was made public.

My machinery consists of four triangular pointers or hands [each upon a separate pedestal, ranged along in a row], each of which points like the hand of a clock to different situations in the circles which they describe. It is easy to distinguish whether a hand moving vertically points perpendicularly downwards or upwards, horizontally to the right or left, or to any of the four intermediate positions.

The eye can readily perceive the eight different positions in which one of the pointers is represented [on the plate attached to the article in the "Transactions," but here omitted]. Of these eight positions seven only are employed to denote figures, the upright position of the hand or pointer being reserved to represent o, or zero. The figures thus denoted refer to a vocabulary in which all the words are numbered. Of the four pointers, that which appears to the left hand of the observer represents thousands; the others hundreds, tens, and units, in succession, as in common numeration.

[By these means, as Mr. Edgeworth showed, numbers from 1 up to 7,777, omitting those having a digit above 7, could be displayed to the distant observer, who on referring to his vocabulary discovered that they meant such expressions as it might seem convenient to transmit by this excellent invention.]

Although the electric telegraphs have long since superseded telegraphs of this class in public use, the young people of Colonel Ingham's class took great pleasure in the next summer in using Mr. Edgeworth's telegraph to communicate with each other, by plans easily made in their different country homes.

It may interest the casual reader to know that the first words in the first message transmitted on the telegraph between Scotland and Ireland, alluded to above, were represented by the numbers 2,645, 2,331, 573, 1,113 244, 2,411, 6,336, which being interpreted are,--

"Hark from basaltic rocks and giant walls,"

and so on with the other lines, seven in number. This is Mr. Edgeworth's concise history of telegraphy before his time.

The art of conveying intelligence by sounds and signals is of the highest antiquity. It was practised by Theseus in the Argonautic expedition, by Agamemnon at the siege of Troy, and by Mardonius in the time of Xerxes. It is mentioned frequently in Thucydides. It was used by Tamerlane, who had probably never heard of the black sails of Theseus; by the Moors in Spain; by the Welsh in Britain; by the Irish; and by the Chinese on that famous wall by which they separated themselves from Tartary.

* * * * *

All this detail about Mr. Edgeworth's telegraph resulted in much search in the older encyclopædias. Quite full accounts were found, by the young people, of his system, and of the French system afterwards employed, and worked in France until the electric telegraph made all such inventions unnecessary.

Before the next meeting, Bedford Long, who lived on Highland Street in Roxbury, and Hugh, who lived on the side of Corey Hill, were able to communicate with each other by semaphore; and at the next meeting they arranged two farther stations, so that John, at Cambridge, and Jane Fortescue, at Lexington, were in the series.

There being some half an hour left that afternoon, the children amused themselves by looking up some other of Mr. Edgeworth's curious experiments and vagaries.

MORE OF MR. EDGEWORTH'S FANCIES.

During my residence at Hare Hatch another wager was proposed by me among our acquaintance, the purport of which was that I undertook to find a man who should, with the assistance of machinery, walk faster than any other person that could be produced. The machinery which I intended to employ was a huge hollow wheel, made very light, withinside of which, in a barrel of six feet diameter, a man should walk. Whilst he stepped thirty inches, the circumference of the large wheel, or rather wheels, would revolve five feet on the ground; and as the machinery was to roll on planks and on a plane somewhat inclined, when once the _vis inertiæ_ of the machine should be overcome, it would carry on the man within it as fast as he could possibly walk. I had provided means of regulating the motion, so that the wheel should not run away with its master. I had the wheel made; and when it was so nearly completed as to require but a few hours' work to finish it, I went to London for Lord Effingham, to whom I had promised that he should be present at the first experiment made with it. But the bulk and extraordinary appearance of my machine had attracted the notice of the country neighborhood; and, taking advantage of my absence, some idle curious persons went to the carpenter I employed, who lived on Hare Hatch Common. From him they obtained the great wheel which had been left by me in his care. It was not finished. I had not yet furnished it with the means of stopping or moderating its motion. A young lad got into it; his companions launched it on a path which led gently down hill towards a very steep chalk-pit. This pit was at such a distance as to be out of their thoughts when they set the wheel in motion. On it ran. The lad withinside plied his legs with all his might. The spectators, who at first stood still to behold the operation, were soon alarmed by the shouts of their companion, who perceived his danger. The vehicle became quite ungovernable; the velocity increased as it ran down hill. Fortunately the boy contrived to jump from his rolling prison before it reached the chalk-pit; but the wheel went on with such velocity as to outstrip its pursuers, and, rolling over the edge of the precipice, it was dashed to pieces.

The next day, when I came to look for my machine, intending to try it on some planks which had been laid for it, I found, to my no small disappointment, that the object of all my labors and my hopes was lying at the bottom of a chalk-pit, broken into a thousand pieces. I could not at that time afford to construct another wheel of this sort, and I cannot therefore determine what might have been the success of my scheme.

As I am on the subject of carriages, I shall mention a sailing-carriage that I tried on this common. The carriage was light, steady, and ran with amazing velocity. One day, when I was preparing for a sail in it with my friend and schoolfellow Mr. William Foster, my wheel-boat escaped from its moorings just as we were going to step on board. With the utmost difficulty I overtook it; and as I saw three or four stage-coaches on the road, and feared that this sailing-chariot might frighten their horses, I, at the hazard of my life, got into my carriage while it was under full sail, and then, at a favorable part of the road, I used the means I had of guiding it easily out of the way. But the sense of the mischief which must have ensued if I had not succeeded in getting into the machine at the proper place and stopping it at the right moment was so strong as to deter me from trying any more experiments on this carriage in such a dangerous place.

Such should never be attempted except on a large common, _at a distance from a high_ road. It may not, however, be amiss to suggest that upon a long extent of iron railway in an open country carriages properly constructed might make profitable voyages, from time to time, with sails instead of horses; for though a constant or regular intercourse could not be thus carried on, yet goods of a certain sort, that are salable at any time, might be stored till wind and weather were favorable.

When Bedford had read this passage, John Fordyce said he had travelled hundreds of miles on the Western railways where Mr. Edgeworth's sails could have been applied without a "stage-coach" to be afraid of them.

JACK THE DARTER.

In one of my journeys from Hare Hatch to Birmingham, I accidentally met with a person whom I, as a mechanic, had a curiosity to see. This was a sailor, who had amused London with a singular exhibition of dexterity. He was called _Jack the Darter_. He threw his darts, which consisted of thin rods of deal of about half an inch in diameter and of a yard long, to an amazing height and distance; for instance, he threw them over what was then called the New Church in the Strand. Of this feat I had heard, but I entertained some doubts upon the subject. I had inquired from my friends where this man could be found, but had not been able to discover him. As I was driving towards Birmingham in an open carriage of a singular construction, I overtook a man who walked remarkably fast, but who stopped as I passed him, and eyed my equipage with uncommon curiosity. There was something in his manner that made me speak to him; and from the sort of questions he asked about my carriage, I found that he was a clever fellow. I soon learned that he had walked over the greatest part of England, and that he was perfectly acquainted with London. It came into my head to inquire whether he had ever seen the exhibition about which I was so desirous to be informed.

"Lord! sir," said he, "I am myself Jack the Darter." He had a roll of brown paper in his hand, which he unfolded, and soon produced a bundle of the light deal sticks which he had the power of darting to such a distance. He readily consented to gratify my curiosity; and after he had thrown some of them to a prodigious height, I asked him to throw some of them horizontally. At the first trial he threw one of them eighty yards with great ease. I observed that he coiled a small string round the stick, by which he gave it a rotary motion that preserved it from altering its course; and at the same time it allowed the arm which threw it time to exercise its whole force.

If anything be simply thrown from the hand, it is clear that it can acquire no greater velocity than that of the hand that throws it; but if the body that is thrown passes through a greater space than the hand, whilst the hand continues to communicate motion to the body to be impelled, the body will acquire a velocity nearly double to that of the hand which throws it. The ancients were aware of this; and they wrapped a thong of leather round their javelins, by which they could throw them with additional violence. This invention did not, I believe, belong to the Greeks; nor do I remember its being mentioned by Homer or Xenophon. It was in use among the Romans, but at what time it was introduced or laid aside I know not. Whoever is acquainted with the science of projectiles will perceive that this invention is well worthy of their attention.

A ONE-WHEELED CHAISE.