ph. The people of to-day seem to have forgotten that the
telegraph is not necessarily dependent on the electrical current. They
have forgotten that back of the Morse invention other means had been
employed of transmitting information at a distance. They have
forgotten that it was by the most gradual and tedious process that the
old telegraphic methods were evolved into the new. Note with wonder
how this great invention began, and through what stages it passed to
completion.

There is a natural telegraphy. Whoever stands in an open place and
calls aloud to his fellow mortal at a distance _telegraphs_ to him. At
least he telephones to him; that is, _sounds_ to him at a distance.
The air is the medium, the vocal cords in vibration the source of the
utterance, and the ear of the one at a distance the audiphonic
receiver. This sort of telegraphy is original and natural with human
beings, and it is common to them and the lower animals. All the
creatures that have vocality use this method. It were hard to say how
humble is the creeping thing that does not rasp out some kind of a
message to its fellow insect. Some, like the fireflies, do their
telegraphing with a lantern which they carry. The very crickets are
expert in telegraphy, or telephony, which is ultimately the same
thing.

After transmitted sound the next thing is the visible signal, and this
has been employed by human beings from the earliest ages in
transmitting information to a distance. It is a method which will
perhaps never be wholly abandoned. Observe the surveyors running a
trial line. Far off is the chain bearer and here is the theodolite.
The man with the standard watches for the signal of the man with the
instrument. The language is _seen_ and the message understood, though
no word is spoken. Here the sunlight is the wire, and the visible
motion of the hands and arms the letters and words of the message.

The ancients were great users of this method. They employed it in both
peace and war. They occupied heights and showed signals at great
distances. The better vision of those days made it possible to catch a
signal, though far off, and to transmit it to some other station,
likewise far away. In this manner bright objects were waved by day and
torches by night. In times of invasion such a method of spreading
information has been used down to the present age. Nor may we fail to
note the improved apparatus for this kind of signaling now employed in
military