y obtained by burning and reducing to ashes various plants,
and in this way the acid and potash could act on each other through the
clay.

Cyrus Harding then took two slips of zinc, one of which was plunged
into azotic acid, the other into a solution of potash. A current was
immediately produced, which was transmitted from the slip of zinc in the
bottle to that in the tube, and the two slips having been connected by a
metallic wire the slip in the tube became the positive pole, and that in
the bottle the negative pole of the apparatus. Each bottle, therefore,
produced as many currents as united would be sufficient to produce all
the phenomena of the electric telegraph. Such was the ingenious and very
simple apparatus constructed by Cyrus Harding, an apparatus which would
allow them to establish a telegraphic communication between Granite
House and the corral.

On the 6th of February was commenced the planting along the road to
the corral, of posts furnished with glass insulators, and intended to
support the wire. A few days after, the wire was extended, ready to
produce the electric current at a rate of twenty thousand miles a
second.

Two batteries had been manufactured, one for Granite House, the other
for the corral; for if it was necessary the corral should be able to
communicate with Granite House it might also be useful that Granite
House should be able to communicate with the corral.

As to the receiver and manipulator, they were very simple. At the two
stations the wire was wound round a magnet, that is to say, round a
piece of soft iron surrounded with a wire. The communication was thus
established between the two poles; the current, starting from the
positive pole, traversed the wire, passed through the magnet which was
temporarily magnetized, and returned through the earth to the negative
pole. If the current was interrupted, the magnet immediately became
unmagnetized. It was sufficient to place a plate of soft iron before the
magnet, which, attracted during the passage of the current, would fall
back when the current was interrupted. This movement of the plate thus
obtained, Harding could easily fasten to it a needle arranged on a dial,
bearing the letters of the alphabet, and in this way communicate from
one station to the other.

All was completely arranged by the 12th of February. On this day,
Harding, having sent the current through the wire, asked if all
was going on well at the corral, and receiv