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281
Heroes of the Telegraph
·
John Munro
269
The
chemical
telegraph
was
tried
between
Paris
and
Lille
before
a
committee
of
the
Institute
and
the
Legislative
Assembly.
The
speed
of
signalling
attained
was
282
words
in
fifty-two
seconds,
a
marvellous
advance
on
the
Morse
electro-magnetic
instrument,
which
only
gave
about
forty
words
a
minute.
In
the
hands
of
Edison
the
neglected
method
of
Bain
was
seen
by
Sir
William
Thomson
in
the
Centennial
Exhibition,
Philadelphia,
recording
at
the
rate
of
1057
words
in
fifty-seven
seconds.
In
England
the
telegraph
of
Bain
was
used
on
the
lines
of
the
old
Electric
Telegraph
Company
to
a
limited
extent,
and
in
America
about
the
year
1850
it
was
taken
up
by
the
energetic
Mr.
Henry
O'Reilly,
and
widely
introduced.
But
it
incurred
the
hostility
of
Morse,
who
obtained
an
injunction
against
it
on
the
slender
ground
that
the
running
paper
and
alphabet
used
were
covered
by
his
patent.
By
1859,
as
Mr.
Shaffner
tells
us,
there
was
only
one
line
in
America
on
which
the
Bain
system
was
in
use,
namely,
that
from
Boston
to
Montreal.
Since
those
days
of
rivalry
the
apparatus
has
never
become
general,
and
it
is
not
easy
to
understand
why,
considering
its
very
high
speed,
the
chemical
telegraph
has
not
become
a
greater
favourite.
In
1847
Bain
devised
an
automatic
method
of
playing
on
wind
instruments
by
moving
a
band
of
perforated
paper
which
controlled
the
supply
of
air
to
the
pipes;
and
likewise
proposed
to
play
a
number
of
keyed
instruments
at
a
distance
by
means
of
the
electric
current.
Both
of
these
plans
are
still
in
operation.
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