found out a strange matter or power which was, perhaps generally
diffused, and formed in some sort the soul of the universe. He
endeavoured to bring his invention under the eye of the First Consul,
but Napoleon referred the matter to Delambre, and would not see it.
Alexandre was born at Paris, and served as a carver and gilder at
Poictiers; then sang in the churches till the Revolution suppressed this
means of livelihood. He rose to influence as a Commissary-general, then
retired from the army and became an inventor. His name is associated
with a method of steering balloons, and a filter for supplying Bordeaux
with water from the Garonne. But neither of these plans appear to have
been put in practice, and he died at Angouleme, leaving his widow in
extreme poverty.

Sommering, a distinguished Prussian anatomist, in 1809 brought out a
telegraph worked by a voltaic battery, and making signals by decomposing
water. Two years later it was greatly simplified by Schweigger, of
Halle; and there is reason to believe that but for the discovery of
electro-magnetism by Oersted, in 1824 the chemical telegraph would have
come into practical use.

In 1806, Ralph Wedgwood submitted a telegraph based on frictional
electricity to the Admiralty, but was told that the semaphore was
sufficient for the country. In a pamphlet he suggested the
establishment of a telegraph system with public offices in different
centres. Francis Ronalds, in 1816, brought a similar telegraph of his
invention to the notice of the Admiralty, and was politely informed that
'telegraphs of any kind are now wholly unnecessary.'

In 1826-7, Harrison Gray Dyar, of New York, devised a telegraph in which
the spark was made to stain the signals on moist litmus paper by