“To the foregoing notice, we append an article published in Thompson’s Annals of Philosophy, vol. 7, page 162, 1st series, February, 1816. This article is from the pen of Dr. John Redman Coxe, of Philadelphia, and it is believed that the idea of the employment of galvanism, for a telegraph which it suggests, was then original. Those who are acquainted with the history of the progress of electricity, as evolved by the ordinary machine, are aware that experiments had been made with a view to its employment for a similar purpose; but from the inherent difficulties of the subject, the project had been abandoned. “It is not pretended, that the state of our knowledge on the subject of galvanism, was such at the time the foregoing suggestion was made, as would have enabled any person to apply it practically; this, if done, will be due to the recent discoveries on the subject of electro magnetism; a subject which has been very successfully pursued by the philosophers of our own country, and particularly by Professor Henry, of Princeton. As some of the philosophers of Europe are disputing upon the question of the authorship of _proposition_ for the employment of Galvanic electricity, telegraphically, we have thought that it would not be altogether inopportune, or uninteresting, to publish the article above referred to. “_Use of Galvanism as a Telegraph: in an extract of a Letter from Dr. J. Redman Coxe, Professor of Chemistry, Philadelphia._ “I observe in one of the volumes of your Annals of Philosophy, a proposition to employ galvanism, as a solvent, for the urinary calculus, but which has been very properly, I think, opposed by Mr. Armiger. I merely notice this, as it gives me the opportunity of saying, that a similar idea was maintained in a thesis, _three years_ ago, by a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. I have, however, contemplated this important agent, as a probable means of establishing telegraphic communications, with as much rapidity, and perhaps less expense, than any hitherto employed. I do not know how far experiment has determined galvanic action, to be communicated by means of wires; but there is no reason to suppose it confined, as to limits, certainly not as to time. Now, by means of apparatus, fixed at certain distances, as telegraphic stations, by tubes, for the _decomposition_ of _water_, and of metallic salts, &c. regularly ranged, such a key might be adopted as would be requisite to communicate words, sentences, or figures, from one station to another, and so on to the end of the line, I will take another opportunity to enlarge upon this, as I think it might serve many useful purposes; but like all others, it requires time to mature. As it takes up little room, and may be fixed in private, it might, in many cases, of besieged towns, &c. convey useful intelligence, with scarcely a chance of detection by the enemy. However fanciful in speculation, I have no doubt that sooner or later, it will