invention.

Dr. Hooke delivered a discourse before the Royal Society in 1684,
showing how to communicate at great distances. In this discourse he
asserts the possibility of conveying intelligence from one place to
another at a distance of 120 miles as rapidly as a man can write what
he would have sent. He takes to his aid the then recent invention of
the telescope, and explains how characters exposed at one station on
the top of one hill may be made visible to the next station on the top
of the next hill. He invented twenty-four simple characters, each
formed of a combination of three deal boards, each character
representing a letter by the use of cords; these characters were
pushed from behind a screen and exposed, and then withdrawn behind the
screen again. It was not, however, until the French revolution that
the telegraph was applied to practical purposes; but about the end of
1703 telegraphic communication was established between Paris and the
frontiers, and shortly afterward telegraphs were introduced into
England.

The history of the invention and introduction of the electric
telegraph by Prof. Morse is one of inexhaustible interest, and every
incident relating to it is worthy of preservation. The incidents
described below will be found of special interest. The article is from
the pen of the late Judge Neilson Poe, and was the last paper written
by him. He prepared it during his recent illness, the letter embodied
in it from Mr. Latrobe being of course obtained at the time of its
date. It is as follows:

On the 5th of April, 1843, when the monthly meeting of the directors
of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company was about to adjourn, the