s electric system in ascertaining
the velocity of sound. Cannon were stationed at various points, the
Navy Yard, Fort Constitution, South Boston, and at the Observatory, in
front of which was an apparatus and telegraph connecting with the
central office. Each cannon, when fired, heated the circuit. Each
listener at the various points was to snap a circuit key the moment
the sound reached him. In the central office was a chronograph which
registered each discharge in succession. The distances from each
cannon muzzle had been obtained by triangulation. In the calm, still
night, Commodore Wilkes and Professor Farmer stood in the cupola of
the State House with the chronograph, holding their watches, and
noting the successive flashes.

The experiments were not very satisfactory. Mr. Coffin, perhaps,
possibly, because he was not a skilled artillerist, had the mortifying
experience of seeing the apparatus in front of his cannon blown into
fragments, but he made notes of the other reports. After a series of
trials, the approximate result was obtained, that in a moderately
humid atmosphere the velocity of sound was a little under nine hundred
feet per second.

The exactions of the fire alarm service, owing to its crude
construction, which compelled the attendants to be ever on the alert,
told severely on Carleton's' nervous system. He therefore resigned in
October, and went to Cincinnati to get the system introduced there.
Herds of hogs then roamed the streets, picking up their living around
the grain houses, and in the gutters. After three weeks of exhibition
and canvassing, he found that Cincinnati was not yet ready for such a
novelty, and so he returned to Boston.

The following winter was passed in Boscawen without financially
remunerative employment, but in earnest study, though in the spring a
supply of money came pleasantly and unexpectedly. He undertook to
negotiate a patent for an invention of Professor Farmer's, and after
considerable time disposed of it to a New York gentleman. Carleton's
net profits were $1,850.

This was an immense sum to him, and he once more resolved to try
Boston, and did so. He made his home, however, in Malden, renting half
of a small house on Washington Street. Having inked his pen on
agricultural subjects, descriptive pieces, and even on a few poems, he
took up newspaper work. Entering the office of the Boston _Journal_ he
worked without pay, giving the _Journal_ three months' service in