is changed to Prussian blue. Your despatch is
noiselessly written in dark blue dots and lines. Just as the disk
started on that fatal despatch, 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