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was lost, or had been removed from its place. moved, how, or by whom, the sequel will discover. He communicated his loss to Mr. -, who, with

great promptitude, observed, “O! the telegraph, sir! Come with me to the telegraph office." The stranger was almost tempted to indulge in ridicule, but he was assured that the umbrella would be heard of in a few seconds. He entered the office. The telegraph was set in motion, and in an unaccountably short space of time, the lost umbrella was drawn from under the counter upon which the dial stood, the stranger ejaculating, "Well, gentlemen, seeing is believing!" and the individual, who, not an hour before, was unwilling to believe the most ordinary telegraphic feats, now left the office with his opinion so far changed, as to suppose that the umbrella had actually been carried along the wires from the place where he imagined it had been left!

QUARTER-DECK AND STEAM-VESSEL ROOM

TELEGRAPH.

THIS is another among the multitudinous utilities of the telegraph. In February, 1846, The Scourge steam bomb vessel was fitted with an electric telegraph apparatus for transmitting instantaneous communications from her paddle-box or bridge to the engineroom; whereby, whether by day or by night, proper directions might be given to the engineers, instead of, as now, employing call-boys, who shout out down below, to the annoyance of all upon deck, "Ease her."

"Stop her," with the probability of being often misunderstood. The telegraphic apparatus, being portable, may be moved to any part of the vessel, and is not confined to the use of the officer on the bridge or paddle-box, but both the steersman and the look-out may use it. We can easily conceive that the carrying such an apparatus may be highly useful for indicating, in an unmistakable manner, the orders of a pilot; that it may enable a vessel to right or tack more instantaneously, and so prevent her from foundering by a timely steer.

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An apparatus, but not of an electric kind, has been adopted in the Royal yacht, Victoria and Albert, to communicate orders from the quarter-deck to the steam-engine-room. It is constructed from a patent granted to Mr. J. G. Hughes, but simplified by Capt. Crispin, commander of the Royal Yacht. The apparatus is mounted on a pedestal near the stern. the engine-room dial is a handle, which, being moved, agitates a bell in the engine-room, in order to call the engineer's attention. Next is a bell, which the engineer rings, to show he is on the alert; and a pointer, moved by a handle, which communicates, by means of mitre wheels, with the pointer of the dial in the engine-room. The pointers of the two dials are so connected as to stand at similar points on their respective faces. The centre portion of the quarter-deck dial, on which "astern" and "ahead" are painted, is of ground glass, illuminated at night by a lantern, which is removed during the day.

MONEY-RETURNING TELEGRAPH.

ONE morning, a lady inadvertently left her purse, containing 301., on the counter at the Witham station of the Eastern Counties Railway. It remained unobserved by the station-clerk until both the train and the lady had left; whereupon he instantly "telegraphed" the occurrence to the authorities at the Chelmsford station, who, on the train's arrival, made inquiry of all the lady passengers, who immediately commenced an investigation of pockets, reticules, and purses. Amongst others, one found that she was no longer mistress of her little mint; and she was informed, through the master medium of electric language, that her purse was safe at Witham, and would be forwarded by the following train.

WHAT THE TELEGRAPH CANNOT DO!

THE Railway Chronicle was the first to apprise us of the curious fact, that the electric telegraph will not work in the summit tunnel of the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire Railway, the longest tunnel in England, not excepting the celebrated "Box" of Brunel.

A correspondent of the above journal attempts the following explanation :-"The air," he says, "in every tunnel is highly charged with moisture, thus causing it to be a rapid conductor of the electric current. If the telegraph wires be not sufficiently insulated or covered with some substance which is impervious to

damp, the electricity will escape into the surrounding air, and be dissipated. By the great draughts of air, which are caused by the several shafts to a tunnel, the electricity may thus be altogether led away. It appears to me, that were only one wire to be carried through the tunnel, and at each end of the tunnel another wire were to enter for a short distance, the one connected with the telegraph apparatus and the other with the battery, the circuit would as readily be completed as by having two wires running through the tunnel. This plan is similar to that practised at Portsmouth dock-yard for carrying the telegraph across the harbour, where only one wire is carried under the water; and to form the connexion, a short wire is dropped into the water at each side, one attached to the wire leading to the battery, and the other to the revolving needle of the apparatus. In the case of the tunnel, again, in place of letting the disconnected wires enter the tunnel, they might be made to enter a bed of coke sunk in the earth at each end, and the earth would thus take the place of the other conducting wire. This, I believe, is the plan adopted by Mr. Bain, on the Edinburgh and Glasgow."

THE TELEGRAPH A WEATHER PROPHET
IN ALL LATITUDES.

"Dost thou know the times and the seasons ?" was the language of one of old, when he would put human power to the touchstone, or sink it under a sense of

its insignificance. Modern science, however, has enabled man to answer these questions in a finite sense in the affirmative, though still as much as ever under a sense of his insignificance and lowliness. The phenomena of the atmosphere, the mysteries of meteors, the cause and effect of skiey combinations, are no longer matters of superstition or of panic to the husbandman, the sailor, or the shepherd; aud, in addition to all this, the telegraph comes in to tell him, for his every-day uses and observances, not only that “fair weather cometh out of the north," but the electric wire can tell him in a moment the character of the weather simultaneously in all quarters of our island-where it is blue, splendid, and transparent; where it is black and unblended even by a sun-shower, wafting warnings alike of the cold blast or the genial breathings. In this manner, the telegraph may be made a vast national barometer, electricity becoming the handmaid of the mercury by indicating coming thunder, frost, sunshine, or snow, and the relative states simultaneously of the weather, north, south, east, and west, and of the waftings of the winds from their Eolian halls. It may also communicate the amount of rain and the state of the crops to the corn speculators in Mark-lane. Where the weather, as in our own island, is so proverbially changeable, this new power of prognostication will be found in time invaluable. Its use in telegraphing the approach of fogs from one terminus of a railway to another is of every-day practice.

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