er rooms in the Albany Academy a wire of
more than a mile in length, through which I was enabled to make signals
by sounding a bell, (Fig. 7.) The mechanical arrangement for effecting
this object was simply a steel bar, permanently magnetized, of about ten
inches in length, supported on a pivot, and placed with its north end
between the two arms of a horseshoe magnet. When the latter was excited
by the current, the end of the bar thus placed was attracted by one arm
of the horseshoe, and repelled by the other, and was thus caused to move
in a horizontal plane and its further extremity to strike a bell
suitably adjusted.

I also devised a method of breaking a circuit, and thereby causing a
large weight to fall. It was intended to illustrate the practicability
of calling into action a great power at a distance capable of producing
mechanical effects; but as a description of this was not printed, I do
not place it in the same category with the experiments of which I
published an account, or the facts which could be immediately deduced
from my papers in _Silliman's Journal_.

From a careful investigation of the history of electro-magnetism in its
connection with the telegraph, the following facts may be established:

1. Previous to my investigations the means of developing magnetism in
soft iron were imperfectly understood, and the electro-magnet which then
existed was inapplicable to the transmission of power to a distance.

2. I was the first to prove by actual experiment that, in order to
develop magnetic power at a distance, a galvanic battery of intensity
must be employed to project the current through the long conductor, and
that a magnet surrounded by many turns of one long wire must be used to
receive this current.

3. I was the first actually to magnetize a piece of iron at a distance,
and to call attention to the fact of the applicability of my experiments
to the telegraph.

4. I was the first to actually sound a bell at a distance by means of
the electro-magnet.

5. The principles I had developed were applied by Dr. Gale to render
Morse's machine effective at a distance.

THE FIRST ATLANTIC CABLES

GEORGE ILES

[From "Flame, Electricity and the Camera," copyright Doubleday,
Page & Co., New York.]

Electric telegraphy on land has put a vast distance between itself and
the mechanical signalling of Chappe, just as the scope and availability
of the French invention are in high contrast