placed at right angles to one of the extremities of the wires, and the
bundle of wires at each extremity will be carried by a solid piece of
glass. The portions of the wires that run from the glass support to the
machine have sufficient elasticity and stiffness to return to their
primitive position after having been brought into contact with the
battery. Very near to this same glass support, on the opposite side,
there descends a ball suspended from each wire, and at a sixth or a
tenth of an inch beneath each ball there is placed one of the letters of
the alphabet written upon small pieces of paper or other substance light
enough to be attracted and raised by the electrified ball. Besides this,
all necessary arrangements are taken so that each of these little papers
shall resume its place when the ball ceases to attract.

[Illustration: FIG. 1.--LESAGE'S TELEGRAPH.]

"All being arranged as above, and the minute at which the correspondence
is to begin having been fixed upon beforehand, I begin the conversation
with my friend at a distance in this way: I set the electric machine
in motion, and, if the word that I wish to transcribe is 'Sir,' for
example, I take, with a glass rod, or with any other body electric
through itself or insulating, the different ends of the wires
corresponding to the three letters that compose the word. Then I press
them in such a way as to put them in contact with the battery. At the
same instant, my correspondent sees these different letters carried in
the same order toward the electrified balls at the other extremity of
the wires. I continue to thus spell the words as long as I judge proper,
and my correspondent, that he may not forget them, writes down the
letters in measure as they rise. He then unites them and reads the
dispatch as often as he pleases. At a given signal, or when I desire it,
I stop the machine, and, taking a pen, write down what my friend sends