At _his_ end of our line the brave John Meavy waits before two similar boxes, in each compartment of which is a _female_ snail. He is a skilled observer, and his quick eve beholds snails _a_, _b_, _c_ exactly (through sympathy) _repeating_ the effects I am producing in _x_, _y_, _z_,--though the distance between them is over three thousand miles! He knows the meaning of these slight effects, and, going upon 'Change, buys or sells with a perfect assurance of profit. "Such was my telegraph, in its rudest outline; but I had systematized it to a degree of far greater nicety. I provided entirely against man's imperfect and defective powers of observation. These movements and squirmings, which in snails _x_, _y_, _z_, were the effect of a physical cause, (salt-water.) were, in snails _a_, _b_, _c_, the result of sympathy for _x_, _y_, _z_, as I have said,--a result constant, determinate, and always to be depended upon. That is the _law_ of their _rapport_,--not a _theory_, but a _law_, established by long, exhaustive, and conclusive experimentation. The reason for it I cannot assign,--did not pretend to investigate; but the _fact_ I had ascertained: _x_, _y_, _z_, so touched, squirm, contract, and expand their articulations, and exude from their pores a certain slimy sweat, of agony it may be,--anyhow, a slimy exudation comes from them, --and, _simultaneously_, and _just as much_ in kind, degree, quality, everything, snails _a_, _b_, _c_ repeat the process. Such is the law, constant as gravitation. Consequently, all that the _operator_ has to concern himself about is, to understand that so many touches, with fluid of such intensity, to so many snails, and repeated so often, produce such and such an effect upon them, as, collectively considered, to convey, through _a_, _b_, _c_, a certain piece of information. Knowing this, skill in manipulation and accurate memory are all the qualities he requires to conjoin to such knowledge. But the _observer_ has a much more delicate office to perform, and, until I invented my recording apparatus, the functions of this post could be discharged only roughly and imperfectly, so evanescent and complex the manifestations. But I discovered a _chemical_ observer, employing tests that nothing could escape, nor anything deceive. The clock that indicates the hour for receipt of news puts in motion the filaments of certain delicate machinery connected with the boxes wherein are _a_, _b_, _c_. These snails are placed upon a gauze-like substance, which, though firm enough to support them undisturbed, permits both their natural excretions, and their exudations under excitement, to filter through readily. As soon as the hour comes, the machinery moves, and there begins to pass the _recording paper_, so to speak, which I invented,--a paper not meant to receive any vulgar mechanical impression, but one which, to the instructed eye, and by the aid of the microscope, sets forth in _plain