"I am at home," says Reusser, "before my electric machine, and I am dictating to some one on the other side of the street a complete letter that he is writing himself. On an ordinary table there is fixed vertically a square board in which is inserted a pane of glass. To this glass are glued strips of tinfoil cut out in such a way that the spark shall be visible. Each strip is designated by a letter of the alphabet, and from each of them starts a long wire. These wires are inclosed in glass tubes which pass underground and run to the place whither the dispatch is to be transmitted. The extremities of the wires reach a similar plate of glass, which is likewise affixed to a table and carries strips of tinfoil similar to the others. These strips are also designated, by the same letters, and are connected by a return wire with the table of him who wishes to dictate the message. If, now, he who is dictating puts the external armature of a Leyden jar in contact with the return wire, and the ball of this jar in contact with a metallic rod touching that of the tinfoil strip which corresponds with the letter which he wishes to dictate to the other, sparks will be produced upon the nearest as well as upon the remotest strips, and the distant correspondent, seeing such sparks, may immediately write down the letter marked. Will an extended application of this system ever be made? That is not the question; it is possible. It will be very expensive; but the post hordes from Saint Petersburg to Lisbon are also very expensive, and if any one should apply the idea on a large scale, I shall claim a recompense." Every letter, then, was signaled by one or several sparks that started forth on the breaking of the strip; but we see nothing in this document to authorize the opinion which has existed, that every tinfoil strip was a sort of magic tablet upon which the sparks traced the very form of the letter to be transmitted. Voigt, the editor of the _Magazin_, adds, in continuation of Reusser's communication: "Mr. Reusser should have proposed the addition to this arrangement of a vessel filled with detonating gas which could be exploded in the first place, by means of the electric spark, in order to notify the one to whom something was to be dictated that he should direct his attention to the strips of tinfoil." This passage gives the first indication of the use of a special call for the telegraph. The same year (1794), in a work entitled _Versuch über Telegraphie und Telegraphen_, Boeckmann likewise proposed the use of the pistol as a call signal, in conjunction with the use of a line composed of two wires only, and of discharges in the air or a vacuum, grouped in such a way as to form an alphabet.