Sec. 3
If such an historian were to examine from the beginning the first
order of questions, he might, no doubt, speak only briefly of the
attempts earlier than electric telegraphy. Without seeking to be
paradoxical, he certainly ought to mention the invention of the
speaking-trumpet and other similar inventions which for a long time
have enabled mankind, by the ingenious use of the elastic properties
of the natural media, to communicate at greater distances than they
could have attained without the aid of art. After this in some sort
prehistoric period had been rapidly run through, he would have to
follow very closely the development of electric telegraphy. Almost
from the outset, and shortly after Ampere had made public the idea of
constructing a telegraph, and the day after Gauss and Weber set up
between their houses in Goettingen the first line really used, it was
thought that the conducting properties of the earth and water might be
made of service.
The history of these trials is very long, and is closely mixed up with
the history of ordinary telegraphy; long chapters for some time past
have been devoted to it in telegraphic treatises.
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