Just as the disc started on that fatal dispatch, and Cogs bent over it
to read, his spirit-lamp blew up,--as the dear things will. They were
beside themselves in the lonely, dark office; but, while the men were
fumbling for matches, which would not go, Cogs's sister, Nydia, a sweet
blind girl, who had learned Bain's alphabet from Dr. Howe at South
Boston, bent over the chemical paper, and _smelt_ out the prussiate of
potash, as it formed itself in lines and dots to tell the sad story.
Almost anybody used to reading the blind books can read the embossed
Morse messages with the finger,--and so this message was read at all
the midnight way-stations where no night-work is expected, and where
the companies do not supply fluid or oil. Within my narrow circle of
acquaintance, therefore, there were these simultaneous instances, where
the same message was seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and felt. So
universal is the dot-and-line alphabet,--for Bain's is on the same
principle as Morse's.

The reader sees, therefore, first, that the dot-and-line alphabet can
be employed by any being who has command of any long and short
symbols,--be they long and short notches, such as Robinson Crusoe kept
his accounts with, or long and short waves of electricity, such as
these which Valentia is sending across to the Newfoundland Bay, so
prophetically and appropriately named "The Bay of Bulls." Also, I hope
the reader sees that the alphabet can be understood by any intelligent
being who has any one of the five senses left him,--by all rational
men, that is, excepting the few eyeless deaf persons who have lost both
taste and smell in some complete paralysis. The use of Morse's
telegraph is by no means confined to the small clique who possess or
who understand electrical batteries. It is not only the torpedo or the
_Gymnotus electricus_ that can send us messages from the ocean. Whales
in the sea can telegraph as well as senators on land, if they will only
note the difference between long spoutings and short ones. And they can
listen, too. If they will only note the difference between long and
short, the eel of Ocean's bottom may feel on his slippery skin the
smooth messages of our Presidents, and the catfish, in his darkness,
look fearless on the secrets of a Queen. Any beast, bird, fish, or
insect, which can discriminate between long and short, may use the
telegraphic alphabet, if he have sense enough. Any creature, which can
hear, smell, taste, feel