Underground Wiring That Never Happened

Early in the history of telephones, the state of New York very nearly required all telephone and telegraph wiring to be underground. If the rest of the nation had followed, we might have had a much more attractive landscape today.

A bill to compel telegraph and telephone companies in cities to place their wires underground has passed to its third reading in the New York State Senate. It provides that after March, 1885, no wires or poles shall be permitted above ground, and as it is very likely to become a law, the officers of the companies interested will probably be obliged to set themselves at work in earnest to devise some unexceptionable means of laying and using subterranean lines. The Western Union Telegraph Company has taken the lead, and in a few months the two thousand wires which now enter its main building on Broadway will probably all be concealed beneath the surface. One of the principal difficulties in the way of burying electric-wires seems to be the imperfect character of the means of insulation. now in use. At present gutta-percha is the material most available, but this is not very durable, and is, besides, melted by a comparatively slight heat, so that it runs down, and leaves the wires exposed. In the streets of a city so compact and so modern as New York there are many sources of heat, which may injure cables placed near them, and the pipes of the steam-heating companies have occasioned the destruction of many insulated wires buried near by. One of the greatest needs of electrical practice is a better insulating substance than any yet employed, and the discoverer of such a material will reap an ample reward. The telephone lines, owing to the much greater sensitiveness of the instruments used upon them, are generally assumed to need more careful insulation than even those of the telegraph, but a singular story has been reported in one or two of the technical journals, to the effect that a certain “line-man” in a western city, while intoxicated, carried some wires without insulation, simply securing them to the posts by iron staples, and that these wires were found just as serviceable, even in rainy weather, as those running over glass insulators; so that the company who employed this unconscious inventor afterwards built many miles of uninsulated line, and used it with perfect success.

—American Architect and Building News, March 10, 1883.

A World Powered by Compressed Air

A French magazine from 1847 describes the enthusiasm of M. Antoine Andraud for compressed air. M. Andraud actually made some experiments with compressed-air vehicles in the 1840s, but he dreamed of much more. This new translation first appeared at Dr. Boli’s Random Translations.

Since steam was applied to locomotion on railroads, the attention of scientists and practical men must have turned often to the enormous consumption of combustible fuel that the exploitation of a railway necessitates. To find a new motor that does not require, or at least that reduces the use, of costly material, indispensable in many circumstances, and whose rarity cannot be long in making itself felt: such has been and still is the problem to be solved, and, the question being thus posed, it is easy to conceive the preoccupations of those who advocate the use of atmospheric air as the agent of traction. It is certain that, from the point of view of economy, industry, in the majority of cases, would benefit by making use of this force which is almost free, especially if it could be made to work better than coal, whose ever-growing consumption must soon exceed the ability of the mines to supply it. As everyone knows, moreover, that the use of steam is founded upon the expansive force of that fluid, everyone also understands that it is possible to apply atmospheric air to the same uses; the difficulty is entirely in the means of putting this dynamic power to use.

A number of attempts have been made over the past few years to gain some use from the elasticity of the gas that surrounds our globe. Among the most exalted partisans of aerodynamics we must mention M. Andraud, who has enthusiastically publicized the omnipotence of his new motor. According to him, the transportation of letters, the cultivation of land, navigation, drilling, and the defense of cities at war, should henceforth be done only with the aid of compressed air. Acoustics would more and more become the tributary of that agent, and one of the great surprises prepared for our descendants will be hearing those monstrous concerts of which M. Andraud thought he was giving us a very attractive idea by comparing them to the sublime crashes of thunder. The honorable inventor also expects to accomplish aerial navigation with his universal motor; he even dreams occasionally of perpetual motion, but this time he employs the air dilated by a little hearth, or rather, in those countries where the sun is generous to the point of insolence, by an assemblage of mirrors which he calls a solar furnace. Furthermore, M. Andraud logically proposes to use only wind-powered and hydraulic wheels to compress the air, and would regard as purely transitory the use of steam as an agent of compression. Such, in short, is his powerful conviction that he expresses himself thus: “If I turn my thought to the future, I believe that a time will come when municipal authorities will establish in the cities vast reservoirs of compressed air, where each citizen will come, with his empty container, to tap into the force that has become of the utmost utility, as we see water carriers in Paris filling their barrels from the public fountains. We must come to the point where everyone shall be able to have forces stored up, as today we have horses in the stable for tomorrow’s labor.” M. Andraud, as we see, certainly does not fail for lack of imagination; unfortunately, out of all these fine things, and many others we did not see fit to speak of, only one has really been submitted to experiment. We speak of a compressed-air locomotive; and, if we are not mistaken, it was as much as it could do to propel itself. M. Andraud is evidently a man of merit who has made a wrong turn, and who forgets too easily that, when it comes to invention, there is a world of illusions between more or less seductive hypotheses and practical applications.

—Revue des deux mondes, 1847.

Telegraphy Before Morse

From a Dictionnaire raisonné de bibliologie by Gabriel Peignot, published in 1802, comes an article about telegraphy, before the electrical system of Morse began our communications revolution. At that time the most-used system was the one invented by Claude Chappe, which was used with great success by the French. It would be difficult to gain an accurate understanding of the Chappe system of telegraphy from this article; a more lucid description is at the Wikipedia article on “Optical telegraph.” But what this article does convey is the sense of wonder at the distance a message can cover in mere minutes. What an age of marvels we live in!

The present article is liberally pillaged by the article on télégraphie in a Dictionnaire des inventions from 1837, and we have used that article to correct some typographical errors in this one.

TELEGRAPHY. The art of corresponding at great distances and with rapidity by using signs that represent letters and words. The establishment may be called a telegraph, an aerial post, or a verbal post. The ancients made use of lighthouses, fires, smoke, torches, flags, standards, sentry posts, drums, and trumpets to communicate promptly and at a distance news or events foreseen in advance. Polybius and Julius Africanus mention in particular the use of Telegraphy among the Greeks and Romans. But the methods of those peoples, though simple, were imperfect, and could not express the letters and the modulations of discourse. Moreover, in those days, the lack of spyglasses must have made the distances between stations very short, and most of the signals were visible only by night. After the Greeks, the first telegraphic attempts were those of Athanasius Kircher, Kesler, Amontons, Rob-Hoock [probably Robert Hooke], someone of the name of Gautkey, Guyot, and Paulian. But their different methods, of varying ingenuity, could never have produced all the advantages of true telegraphy. It was left for Citizen Chappe to bring them together in the telegraph he invented. This telegraph is composed of a long frame furnished with blades after the Persian manner, turning on an axis and attached to a mast, which itself turns on a pivot, and is held up at the height of ten feet by strong legs, in such a manner as to render every movement of the machine visible. At the two ends of the frame are two moving wings half its length, which can be made to move in various ways. By the analysis of different inclinations of these three branches against the horizon or the vertical mast, and the positions they take relative to each other, one hundred perfect signals are available to represent figures or letters of determinate values. And we owe to Citizen Chappe’s careful efforts and meditations a method of tachygraphia [speed-writing] whose characters greatly resemble runic writing. The mechanism of the telegraph is such that the handling of it is done effortlessly and swiftly, by means of a double crank placed at a convenient height. With the help of good telescopes and pendulum clocks measuring seconds, observations can be made and news communicated from one extremity to the other, often without intermediate observers being able to penetrate the meaning of the message.

This discovery, which does honor to the French nation, dates from 1793; it was not merely an ingenious speculation; its results allowed no doubt of the literal transmission of news. It was clearly of the greatest utility in a host of circumstances, and especially in time of war, when prompt communications may have much influence on success. Thus the National Convention hastened to hail this discovery. It was on July 12, 1793, that the Convention’s Committee on Public Instruction, charged with examining the telegraph of Citizen Chappe, tested the invention. Success was complete; and it was recognized that in 13 minutes and 40 seconds, a dispatch could be transmitted a distance of 48 leagues. The first important piece of news transmitted to Paris by the telegraph was the surrender of Condé. At the session of the Convention of 13 Fructidor, Year 2, a telegraphic dispatch in these words was read: Condé is in the power of the Republic, and the garrison made prisoners of war. Thenceforth the telegraph always announced the most interesting events. It was placed along various lines that linked Paris with different points on the frontiers of the Republic. It is calculated that the establishment of one telegraph, including the apparatus for night use, costs 6000 pounds.

The fortunate invention of the telegraph has passed into the different nations of Europe, notably in Sweden, Ireland, and England: this last nation, which at first made a joke of its use, has ended up adopting it. M. Edecrantz, a Swede, has written a treatise on the telegraph; after having given the history of that discovery, he proposes a new establishment of this sort, for which he suggests various methods as simple as they are ingenious: his work is enriched with plates. Others have further sought to extend and perfect these establishments. We find in the British Library, January, 1796, details of a telegraph invented by two Irish gentlemen; and in the Bulletin of the Philomatic Society, No. 16, Year 6, the description and figure of the telegraph of Citizen Chappe, and those of the new telegraph presented, in the year 6, to the Institute by Citizens Breguet and Betancourt. It is for scientists, and still more for experience, to decide the superiority of this telegraph over that. Citizen Peytes-Montcambrier has imagined a marine telegraph or vigigraph, which is of simple construction and inexpensive; it could be set up in twenty-four hours and send a great number of signals with accuracy and celerity. A test was made with success at Rochefort. Telegraphy comes from two Greek words meaning far and writing. Vigigraphy comes from vigie, a marine term, meaning sentinel, and graphen, writing. To be en vigie is to be a sentinel.

Big Interests Plan Television Theatres

With the exception of the flying machine, no invention was ever so breathlessly anticipated as television. Everyone knew it was coming, and everyone knew it would change the world. But how? This article, published in 1930, suggests that television will be made to pay its way by becoming another attraction in theaters. Clearly the author is simply making it up as he goes along; he has no inside information (as an exercise, count how many uses of the passive voice you can find, as in “it is predicted,” “it was asserted,” “it is recognized,” and so on). As a history of the behind-the-scenes preparations that led to the television industry, this article is worthless. But it is fascinating as an example of the hysterical anticipation that built up around the idea of television in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

BIG INTERESTS PLAN TELEVISION THEATRES

Public Must Pay for New Air Features

Big Business, watching its scientists in the research laboratories, foresees an early solution of puzzling television problems. With the solution, it is predicted, will come the television theatre.

The tremendous struggle for the Fox film and theatre interests, it was asserted, was motivated by the impending sensational upheaval predicted for the introduction of television, and not by any desire of Wall Street to enter the motion picture production business.

CONTROL PLANNED

Television, according to definite and extensive information, is not to be permitted to leap out of hand by the big interests as did radio.

Television will be made to pay its way, competing when perfected with the present legitimate stage and the talking pictures as leading entertainment purveyor to the masses.

This is no guessing contest solution but the definite scheme of big business groups, representing great electrical concerns, financial institutions and powerful theatre chain operators.

UPHEAVAL DUE

From the production studios of Hollywood and New York to the tremendous theatre chain facilities operating under the trade-marks of Fox, Paramount-Publix, Warner Bros. and R-K-O, must be broadcast the entertainment of the future, for unless the solution of handling and controlling television is put into operation, Big Business faces a depreciation in its great land, building and equipment holdings far greater than the financial burdens imposed by the transfer from silent to talkie methods and more sudden than the decline of the speaking stage, and almost inconceivable in its economic effects.

It is recognized that television cannot be withheld for long, and if telvision were to be unleashed as was radio, thrown on the air for he who possesses a rented, borrowed or owned radio set to receive, the theatre industry must inevitably suffer.

If it were made available to all broadcasters, hundreds of theatres would be forced into darkness, transforming to worthless paper the securities of the theatrical industry and making radio-television the undisputed, preeminent entertainment medium.

METHODS PERFECTED

An English method of broadcasting television has been a practical fact for some time. American methods, designed in the research laboratories of the big interests, have been developed along different principles to avoid the necessity of paying royalties to foreign inventors, and also, it is claimed, made as complicated as possible in order to keep its operation under the control of the major leaguers.

The A. T. & T. method is now completed to the point of practical demonstration, and the General Electric is said to be perfected to the point of getting it into the tube of the receiving equipment. But matters have been complicated by a German inventor who, it is revealed, has reduced the American methods to the point of such utter simplicity that construction of television reception equipment is as easy as the making of the old crystal sets used to be.

GREAT CHANGES

The keenest minds of the country are now concentrated on this television problem. The magnitude of the changes to be wrought by it are almost beyond the power of present human conception.

What it will mean to the professional performer is something that can only be conjectured. It may mean the centralizing of entertainment production to such a point that unemployment will be even greater than it is now. On the other hand it may mean such an impetus to production and such a widening of demand that it will be necessary to keep a continuous flow of new entertainment on tap day and night, providing increased employment and wider opportunities.

Whatever the exact nature of the development, however, it is true beyond all argument that the changes brought about on the entertainment map during the past fifteen years will be made to appear insignificant in the face of the sweeping changes now on the threshold of the industry.

——Inside Facts of Stage and Screen, Saturday, April 19, 1930.

The Coming Scarcity of Draft Horses

We’ll always need good draft horses, says a Canadian agricultural expert writing in 1921. Motorized farm equipment will never be of more than limited utility, and the horse will always have the economic advantage. It therefore behooves breeders to invest in the future by keeping up a good stock in the expectation of rising prices.

The Coming Scarcity of Draft Horses

By ALEX. GALBRAITH,

Superintendent of Fairs and Institutes, Dept of Agriculture, Edmonton, Alta.

There is one material difference between the breeding of horses and that of any other kind of domestic animals that is frequently lost sight of, and that is the much longer period required to produce the mature animal. Let the shortage in the hog market for instance manifest itself by an increasing demand, and productive conditions be at all favorable, farmers can catch up with the demand inside a year or so. If the demand for dairy cattle increases materially the breeder can overtake this demand in thirty to thirty-six months, but when the shortage in the horse supply becomes evident, five or six years at the very least must necessarily elapse before any change in the existing conditions can take place or the increasing demand in any way be satisfied.

The present partial depression in the horse business is only a repetition of what happened twenty-five years ago. At that period values of horses were much lower than they are to-day. For five successive winters, from 1893 to 1898, I took part in the Wisconsin Farmers’ Institutes advocating as strongly as I could the continuance of draft horse breeding, believing firmly as I did that it was absolutely necessary to anticipate the coming of better times, better prices and a greatly increased demand. When my subject was announced at those meetings the audience usually lessened materially. Their interest in horses was at zero because of existing low prices. I argued and insisted that the current prices had nothing to do with the question of whether or not they should continue to breed horses—that it was the prices ruling five years ahead that should alone govern their breeding operations. Perhaps ten or fifteen per cent. of those Wisconsin farmers took my advice and continued to breed their mares annually, and I had the satisfaction of knowing afterwards that those men who followed my advice made lots of money while their neighbors who had lost faith in horses had to go into the markets and pay two and even three prices for good work horses for many years afterwards. The faith and courage of those men who took my advice were duly rewarded. Now I have a great deal of faith myself in history repeating itself because I have seen so many instances of it during my own lifetime.

Long before my day, on the advent of the steam locomotive, the British farmers almost stampeded, as they concluded that if the iron horse was henceforth to haul their produce to market, the live horse would necessarily be relegated to the scrap pile. What happened instead was that business and industry generally received such a “fillip” and expanded to such a degree that instead of fewer horses being needed there were far more horses than ever required. They were needed in increased number to haul farm products to town, and factory products to the nearest railway station, and as the industries of the country increased and prospered a tremendous impetus was thereby given to the horse breeding interests of the whole world. From that date onward horses of all kinds, but especially draft horses, have been required in increasing numbers the world over. Occasionally a temporary set-back has taken place, but only to be followed by stronger demands and higher values than ever. The present depression is coincident with that of all other farm products and is aggravated to some extent by the bogus cry of the machine men in favor of gasoline trucks and tractors.

While these machines have already replaced a good many horses both in city and country, and will doubtless continue to do so, the draft horse remains to-day as essential a part of farm life as he ever was. Recent seasons in Western Canada have been extremely favorable to tractor work and yet only a very moderate amount of success can be claimed for even the best kind of tractors. I understand that some machines have proven so unsatisfactory that seventy-five per cent, of them have been returned to the makers, and the factories have since stopped making them altogether. In no case have even the best tractors proven so economical as horses and if this be the case when weather conditions have been almost ideal for their success, what would it be in a wet season? These tractors would be anchored everywhere in the fields and the farmers who have depended on them and parted with their horses would be at their wits’ end to know what to do. It is then that the never failing draft horse would be appreciated as he ought to be and the absolute necessity of his existence fully realized.

The present unsatisfactory condition of the horse market is largely due to careless, haphazard breeding in recent years and the narrow cheese-paring methods of raising the colts. The average farmer is not sufficiently impressed with the vast difference that there is and always must be between a real first-class draft horse possessing size, strength, soundness and quality, on the one hand, and the smaller boned, lighter muscled, light waisted, nervous animal, on the other hand. One type may have cost about as much to produce as the other, but the usefulness and market value of the first named is infinitely greater and always will be. Many farmers also cling to certain hobbies that are of little consequence. For instance, they must have a horse of a certain color with certain markings, or no markings at all. They attach undue importance to trifling matters and overlook the real essentials. The market for draft horses will accept any color, markings or no markings, but insist on a given weight, good conformation, reasonably good quality, and above all else absolute soundness. These are the important points which the breeder should always keep in mind. Early generous feeding combined with plenty of daily exercise is another matter that no progressive farmer overlooks. There are ten times as many colts spoilt annually from neglect and poor feeding as from over-feeding, in fact there are practically no cases of the latter unless the colt is shut up and prevented from taking daily exercise.

Farmers should have abundant faith in the future of horse breeding and raise all the good drafters they possibly can because prices will assuredly be high long before next season’s weanlings are ready for the market.

It is the opinion of horsemen everywhere that the future for drafters was never so bright. James Torrance, president of the Clydesdale Association of Canada, has the following to say: “In our own community it would be hard to pick up a carload of good sound draft horses, and from interviews with buyers I find the same conditions existing everywhere. During the days when grain and feed were high priced the farmer thought it to his advantage to winter his colts on as little as possible, or probably not breed his mares at all. As the result of the former practice we find scrubby and undersized horses all over the country. This condition is blamed by some on the quality of sires offered for service, but such blame is an injustice, for a visit to any of the larger fairs will show that there are plenty of good sires in the country. Unless the present rate of breeding is increased the numbers of good sound draft horses in the country will fall far short of the demand.”

R. R. Ness, of Howick, Que., says that he has as great faith in the future of the draft horse as in that of the dairy cow. He is backing up that belief by an investment of thousands of dollars in both stallions and mares. “But,” he says, “we must keep up the size. Quality is of equal importance, but it must be accompanied by substance.”

——Farmer’s Magazine, February 10th, 1921.