In the year 1753, there appeared in the _Scots’ Magazine_, vol. xv., definite proposals for the construction of an electric telegraph, requiring as many conducting wires as there are letters in the alphabet; it was also proposed to converse by chimes, by substituting bells for the balls. A similar system of telegraphing was next invented by Joseph Bozolus, a Jesuit, at Rome; and next by the great Italian electrician Tiberius Cavallo, in his treatise on Electricity. In 1787, Arthur Young, when travelling in France, saw a model working telegraph by M. Lomond: “You write two or three words on a paper,” says Young; “he takes it with him into a room, and turns a machine enclosed in a cylindrical case, at the top of which is an electrometer--a small fine pith-ball; a wire connects with a similar cylinder and electrometer in a distant apartment; and his wife, by remarking the corresponding motions of the ball, writes down the words they indicate: from which it appears that he has formed an alphabet of motions. As the length of the wire makes no difference in the effect, a correspondence might be carried on at any distance. Whatever the use may be, the invention is beautiful.” We now reach a new epoch in the scientific period--the discovery of the Voltaic Pile. In 1794, according to _Voigt’s Magazine_, Reizen made use of the electric spark for the telegraph; and in 1798 Dr. Salva of Madrid constructed a similar telegraph, which the Prince of Peace subsequently exhibited to the King of Spain with great success. In 1809, Soemmering exhibited a telegraphic apparatus worked by galvanism before the Academy of Sciences at Munich, in which the mode of signalling consisted in the development of gas-bubbles from the decomposition of water placed in a series of glass tubes, each of which denoted a letter of the alphabet. In 1813, Mr. Sharpe, of Doe Hill near Alfreton, devised a _voltaic_-electric telegraph, which he exhibited to the Lords of the Admiralty, who spoke approvingly of it, but declined to carry it into effect. In the following year, Soemmering exhibited a _voltaic_-electric telegraph of his own construction, which, however, was open to the objection of there being as many wires as signs or letters of the alphabet.