analogous to the one described by Guyot, or rather a synchronism
obtained by means of cords, as in Kircher's arrangement. The fact that
Alexandre's two dials were placed on two different stories, and distant,
horizontally, fifteen meters, in nowise excludes this latter mode of
transmission. On another hand, the mystery in which Alexandre was
shrouded, his declaration relative to the use of a fluid, and the
assurance with which he promised to reveal his secret to the First
Consul, prove absolutely nothing, for too often have the most profoundly
ignorant people--the electric girl, for example--befooled learned bodies
by the aid of the grossest frauds. From the standpoint of the history
of the electric telegraph, there is no value, then, to be attributed to
this apparatus of Alexandre, any more than there is to that of Comus or
to _any_ of the dreams based upon the properties of the magnet.

The history of the electric telegraph really begins with 1753, the date
at which is found the first indication of a telegraph truly based upon
the use of electricity. This telegraph is described in a letter written
by Renfrew, dated Feb. 1, 1753, and signed with the initials "C.M.,"
which, in all probability, were those of a savant of the time--Charles
Marshall. A few extracts from this letter will give an idea of the
precision with which the author described his invention:

"Let us suppose a bundle of wires, in number equal to that of the
letters of the alphabet, stretched horizontally between two given
places, parallel with each other and distant from each other one inch.

"Let us admit that after every twenty yards the wires are connected to a
solid body by a juncture of glass or jeweler's cement, so as to prevent
their coming in contact with the earth or any conducting body, and so
as to help them to carry their own weight. The electric battery will be