"Each galvanic basin rests on a delicate spring, so that it may respond to every escargotic commotion. Now; it is obvious that such an apparatus requires a corresponding apparatus, disposed as has been described, and containing in it snails in sympathy with those in the other apparatus, so that the escargotic vibration may pass from one precise point in one of the piles to a precise point in the other and complementary pile. When these dispositions have been grasped the rest follows as a matter of course. MM. Benoît and Biat have fixed letters to the wheels, corresponding the one with the other, and at each sympathetic touch on one, the other is touched; consequently it is easy by this means, naturally and instantaneously, to communicate ideas at vast distances, by the indication of the letters touched by the snails. The apparatus described is in shape like a mariner's compass, and to distinguish it from that, it is termed the _pasilalinic--sympathetic compass_, as descriptive at once of its effects and the means of operation." But, who were these inventors, Benoît and Biat-Chrétien? We will begin with the latter. As Pontoppidon in his History of Norway heads a chapter, "Of Snakes," and says, "Of these there are none," so we may say of M. Biat-Chrétien; there was no such man; at least he never rose to the surface and was seen. Apparently his existence was as much a hallucination or creation of the fancy of M. Benoît, as was Mrs. Harris a creature of the imagination of Mrs. Betsy Gamp. Certainly no Biat-Chrétien was known in America as a discoverer. Jacques Toussaint Benoît (de l'Hérault) was a man who had been devoted since his youth to the secret sciences. His studies in magic and astrology, in mesmerism, and electricity, had turned his head. Together with real eagerness to pursue his studies, and real belief in them, was added a certain spice of rascality. One day Benoît, who had by some means made the acquaintance of M. Triat, founder and manager of a gymnasium in Paris for athletic exercises, came to Triat, and told him that he had made a discovery which would supersede electric telegraphy. The director was a man of common sense, but not of much education, certainly of no scientific acquirements. He was, therefore, quite unable to distinguish between true and false science. Benoît spoke with conviction, and carried away his hearer with his enthusiasm. "What is needed for the construction of the machine?" asked M. Triat. "Only two or three bits of wood," replied Benoît. M. Triat took him into his carpenter's shop. "There, my friend," he said, "here you have wood, and a man to help you."