other competent operators, received the speech and sent it to New York, finishing it at four o'clock in the morning. Ah! these little "clicks" of the telegraph,—

"Though they breathe not a word,

Their voices are heard

At a distance no voice could reach ;
And swiftly as thought

The words are brought,

And the lightning endowed with speech!

"Though seas roll between,

And lands intervene,

The absent are close at hand;

The eye seems to hear,

And SPACE disappear,

And TIME is compelled to stand."

A telegraphic line has been completed across the Alleghany mountains, and has worked admirably between Philadelphia and Pittsburg, a distance of 300 miles.

The first message of Governor Young to the New York Legislature was commenced reading in the House of Assembly at Albany, on Tuesday, (Jan. 5, 1847,) at 18 minutes before 12, New York time, and was transmitted to New York by the New York, Albany, and Buffalo Telegraph Company, and the entire document complete was placed in possession of the editors of this city at 3 o'clock p.m. The message contained 5000 words, or 25,000 letters, and was written from two instruments in the Albany office, by Messrs. Carter, Buel, and Johnson, and read in the New York office by the Messrs. Woods, at the rate of 83 letters per minute, or two and a half hours for each instrument. Professor Morse's original estimate to

Congress for the despatch with which communications could be sent by his telegraph, was thirty letters per minute. Here we see the number almost trebled in a long public document.

TELEGRAPH POSTS INDICATORS OF TIME
AND SPEED.

To calculate the speed at which you are travelling on a telegraphed railway, multiply by two the number of telegraph posts you pass in a minute, by four those you pass in half a minute or by eight those you pass in a quarter of a minute; and the result, in each case, will be the number of miles you are then travelling per hour; the posts being arranged thirty to a mile.

EXTRAORDINARY DIALOGUE AND DRAMA.

On Saturday evening, June 6, 1846, Professor Morse, the inventor and superintendent of the magnetic telegraph, and his assistant, Mr. Vail, in their office at Washington, wished to test the integrity of the telegraphic line the whole distance from Washington to New York, a distance of no less than 260 miles. The better to understand the singularity of the scene we are about to record, the reader must imagine four individuals, one at the office in Washington, one at Baltimore, 40 miles distant, one at Philadelphia, 108 miles farther, and one at Philadelphia, (or, rather, Jersey City, opposite New York,) 112 miles farther. The telegraphic line passes through the instruments

at the offices at each of these places, and a communication despatched from any one of these places is written and understood instantly at all the others. We shall designate the operators by the names of the places at which they are stationed.

Washington. Baltimore, are you in connexion with Philadelphia.

Baltimore. Yes.

Wash. Put me in connexion with Philadelphia.
Balt. Ay; wait a minute. (After a pause.) Go
ahead. You can now talk with Philadelphia.
Wash. How do you do, Philadelphia ?

Phil. Pretty well. Is that you, Washington ?
Wash. Ay; are you connected with New York.
Phil. Yes.

Wash. Put me in connexion with New York.

Phil. Ay; wait a minute. (After a pause.) Go ahead. Now for it.

Wash. New York, how are you?-How's your mother.

(New York does not answer.)

Phil. Hallo, New York, Washington is talking to you. Don't you hear him? Why don't you answer? New York. I don't get anything (i.e., communication) from him.

Wash. I get that from New York.

Phil. New York, Washington says he gets that from you.

Balt. How is it that Washington hears from New York, and New York does not hear from Washington ? Phil. There's where I'm floored.

Balt. What is the reason, Washington?

Wash. Because New York has not properly adjusted his magnet.

Phil. I have been hard at work all day. I feel like bricks. Had no supper. I have had a stiff evening's work; there have been so many messages to-night -one alone that gave us seventeen dollars. I want

to go.

*

Wash. Baltimore, keep quiet.

Philadelphia, tell New York to ask me to write dots, (that is, adjust his magnet.)

Phil. Ay, ay, sir; wait a little. New York, ask Washington to write dots.

New York. Ay, ay. Washington, write dots. (Washington begins to write dots.) That's it: O. K. Now I have got you. Go ahead.

Wash. Do you now get what I send you?
New York. Ay, ay.

Wash. Did you get Professor Morse's message for his daughter?

New York. Yes, from Philadelphia; but it was too late to send it over the river to-night. I am all alone; the two boys are gone.

Wash. Very well; no matter.

Balt. Good night; I'm going.

Wash. Good night all.

Phil. Good night.

New York. Good night.

And so ends this curious scene; not an imaginary one, but one of actual occurrence. Let any one reflect

upon the fact, that all these questions and answers occurred in a space of time but very little longer than that in which this unique drama has been related.

SUB-MARINE AND RIVER TELEGRAPHS.

THE credit of the first practical experiment on the mode of crossing broad rivers or other bodies of water, is due to Professor Morse, who, in 1842, conceived, and in December, 1844, submitted his suggestions to the House of Representatives. In the autumn of the former year, the Professor, at the suggestion of the American Institute, undertook to give the public in New York a demonstration of its practicability, by connecting Governor's Island with Castle Garden, a distance of one mile. For this purpose, he laid his wires, properly insulated, beneath the water. He had scarcely begun to operate, and had received only two or three characters, when his intentions were frustrated by the accidental destruction of a part of his conductors by a vessel, which drew them up on her anchor, and cut them off. In the moment of mortification, he immediately devised a plan for preventing such an accident in future, by so arranging his wires along the banks of the river as to cause the water itself to conduct the electricity. Morse tested this arrangement across a canal, with success; and then the simple fact was ascertained, that electricity could be made to cross a river without other conductors than the water itself. A series of experiments was next made to ascertain the law of its passage across the canal (eighty feet),