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281
Heroes of the Telegraph
·
John Munro
45
It
must
be
remembered
that
in
those
days
almost
everything
they
wanted
had
either
to
be
made
by
themselves
or
appropriated
to
their
purpose.
Their
first
battery
was
set
up
in
a
box
of
cherry-wood,
parted
into
cells,
and
lined
with
bees-wax;
their
insulated
wire
was
that
used
by
milliners
for
giving
outline
to
the
'sky-scraper'
bonnets
of
that
day.
The
first
machine
made
at
Speedwell
was
a
copy
of
that
devised
by
Morse,
but
as
Vail
grew
more
intimate
with
the
subject
his
own
ingenuity
came
into
play,
and
he
soon
improved
on
the
original.
The
pencil
was
discarded
for
a
fountain
pen,
and
the
zig-zag
signals
for
the
short
and
long
lines
now
termed
'dots'
and
'dashes.'
This
important
alteration
led
him
to
the
'Morse
alphabet,'
or
code
of
signals,
by
which
a
letter
is
transmitted
as
a
group
of
short
and
long
jets,
indicated
as
'dots'
and
'dashes'
on
the
paper.
Thus
the
letter
E,
which
is
so
common
in
English
words,
is
now
transmitted
by
a
short
jet
which
makes
a
dot;
T,
another
common
letter,
by
a
long
jet,
making
a
dash;
and
Q,
a
rare
letter,
by
the
group
dash,
dash,
dot,
dash.
Vail
tried
to
compute
the
relative
frequency
of
all
the
letters
in
order
to
arrange
his
alphabet;
but
a
happy
idea
enabled
him
to
save
his
time.
He
went
to
the
office
of
the
local
newspaper,
and
found
the
result
he
wanted
in
the
type-cases
of
the
compositors.
The
Morse,
or
rather
Vail
code,
is
at
present
the
universal
telegraphic
code
of
symbols,
and
its
use
is
extending
to
other
modes
of
signalling-for
example,
by
flags,
lights,
or
trumpets.
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