The train passing over the short rail section at one point closed the circuit through the line wires, thus exposing the signal, which was held in place by a "detent." The train, having reached a distant point, passed over another similar short section of rails, closing circuit through another magnet which released the "detent" and reversed the signal. It will be observed that the essential features of the device used in Pope's experiment, on which he laid great stress, and described in Bull's patent, are identical, that is, the circuit closer consists, in the one case of a section of rails "twenty feet long, more or less," on open circuit, and the other identically the same, but with a rail section forty-two feet long, both using line wires. Pope and his friends heralded this experiment--a revival of Bull's device--as demonstrating a wonderful invention on the part of Pope. What Robinson Has Done in Automatic Electric Signaling 1. He has created an epoch making invention of incalculable value to the human race in the wholesale saving of life and property on railroads, an invention of increasing importance and efficiency as time passes and its use is extended. It is an invention so unique and profoundly philosophical that those best skilled in the electrical art at the time it was made, declared that it was contrary to all known laws of electrical action and could not possibly work. 2. Robinson's invention was not an improvement on something that preceded it. It had no precedent. It was an entirely new creation involving principles and methods of operation never before known or used by anybody. 3. His invention was almost unique in this: It was a basic invention conceived, tested, put in practical operation in many installations, and _perfected_, as a system, in all its details, by its original inventor. He reduced it to its lowest terms and its highest efficiency, a perfection and efficiency of operation which have not been exceeded since it left his hands many years ago. 4. His invention has made possible, with safety, the high speed railroading of today. 5. As already stated, the automatic signal system used in and controlling the operation of traffic of the New York subway is purely and exclusively a Robinson system. 6. Robinson's automatic signal system has increased the traffic capacity of the New York subway at least three-fold, and probably twice that. Without it the subway equipment could not transport with safety, one-fourth the number of passengers now carried. 7. This invention has created a practically new industry, giving employment to many thousands of men, in various capacities, skilled and unskilled. 8. It is enriching the railroads by enabling them to carry on twice the traffic, with a given equipment, that they could ever do before, and also by saving their equipment from destruction by collisions and other destructive means.