A great stride was made in 1793 by M. Chappe, a citizen of Paris, when the French Revolution directed all the energies of that nation to the improvement of the art of war; reporting on whose machine to the French Convention in August of the following year, Barère remarked: 'By this invention, remoteness and distance almost disappear, and all the communications of correspondence are effected with the rapidity of the twinkling of an eye.' It consisted of a strong wooden mast some twenty-five feet high, with a cross-beam twelve feet by nine inches jointed on to its top, so as to be movable about its centre like a scale-beam, and could thus be placed horizontally, vertically, or anyhow inclined by means of cords. To each end of this cross-beam was affixed a short vertical indicator about four feet long, which likewise turned on pivots by means of cords, and to the end of each was attached a counterweight, almost invisible at a distance, to balance the weight of it. This machine could be made to assume certain positions which represented or were symbolical of letters of the alphabet. In working, nothing depended on the operator's manual skill, as the movements were regulated mechanically. The time taken up for each movement was twenty seconds, of which the actual motion occupied four; during the other sixteen, the telegraph was kept stationary, to allow of its being distinctly observed and the letter written down by those at the next station. All the parts were painted dark brown, that they might stand out well against the sky; and three persons were required at each station, one to manipulate the machine, another to read the messages through a telescope, and the third to transfer them to paper, or repeat them to No. 1 to send on. The first machine of this kind was erected on the roof of the Paris Louvre, to communicate with the army which was then stationed near Lille, between which places intermediate ones from nine to twelve miles apart were erected, the second being at Montmartre. The different limbs were furnished with argand lamps for night-work. Shortly after this, our own government set up lines of communication from the Admiralty to Deal, Portsmouth, and other points on the coast, which we find thus reported in the _Annual Register_ for 1796: