If time is
not an object, men may go or send. The means used in telegraphing, in
ancient and modern times, have been sound and sight. Anything that can
be expressed so as to be read at a distance, and that conveys a meaning,
is a telegram. [Footnote: This word is of American coinage, and first
appeared in the _Albany Evening Journal_, in 1852. It avoids the
use of two words, as "Telegraphic Message," or "Telegraphic Dispatch,"
and the ungrammatical use of "Telegraph," for a message by telegraph.
The new word was at once adopted.] Our plains Indians used columns of
smoke, or fires, and are the actual inventors of the _heliograph_,
now so called, though formerly meaning the making of a picture by the
aid of the sun--photography. The vessels of a squadron at sea have long
used telegraphic signals. Some of the celebrated sentences of our
history have been written by visual signals, such as "Hold the fort, for
I am coming," "Don't give up the ship," etc. Order of showing,
positions, and colors are arbitrarily made to mean certain words. The
sinking of the "_Victoria_" in 1893, was brought about by the
orders conveyed by marine signals.
Pages:
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153