The Rail, and the Electric Telegraph, Comprising a Brief History of Former Modes of Travelling and Telegraphic Communication, with an Account of the Electric Clock, Etc: With Illustrative Anecdotes and Engravings ...Clarke, 1847 - 144 pages |
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The Rail, and the Electric Telegraph: Comprising a Brief History of Former ... Peter Progress No preview available - 2018 |
The Rail, and the Electric Telegraph: Comprising a Brief History of Former ... Peter Progress No preview available - 2015 |
Common terms and phrases
acid alphabet apparatus arrangement barrel battery Birmingham Branch Brundall canal carriages carried circuit clerk clock coals coil communication conductor connected construction copper copper end crane current of Electricity cylinder dial direction distance Duke of Wellington earth effect Elec electric current Electric Telegraph employed England engraved extremity feet flag formed friction frictional Electricity horse hundred instance insulator invention left needle length letter line is clear Liverpool Liverpool and Manchester locomotive engine magnet Manchester manner means of conveying ment metal miles an hour minutes move moveable Navvy Newcastle North Norwich notice Parliament pass pendulum placed plans plate present Printing Telegraph projected Railroad Railway Regent's canal river Severn river Tyne road roller round seen signals sleepers South Western spring stage coach station terminal stations tion town train Tram-roads travelled tricity tunnel twenty type wheel voltaic Electricity waggons wire wooden words Wrexham zinc
Popular passages
Page 59 - I would propose that upon the lovers' dial-plate there should be written not only the four-and-twenty letters, but several entire words which have always a place in passionate epistles; as flames, darts, die, language, absence, Cupid, heart, eyes, hang, drown, and the like. This would very much abridge the lover's pains in this way of writing a letter, as it would enable him to express the most useful and significant words with a single touch of the needle.
Page 1 - Soon shall thy arm, unconquered steam, afar Drag the slow barge or drive the rapid car ; Or, on wide-waving wings expanded, bear The flying chariot through the fields of air ; — Fair crews triumphant, leaning from above, Shall wave their fluttering kerchiefs as they move, Or warrior bands alarm the gaping crowd, And armies shrink beneath the shadowy cloud.
Page 58 - The friend, in the mean while, saw his own sympathetic needle moving of itself to every letter which that of his correspondent pointed at. By this means they talked together across a whole continent, and conveyed their thoughts to one another in an instant, over cities or mountains, seas or deserts.
Page 57 - ... at never so great a distance, moved at the same time and in the same manner, He tells us, that the two friends, being each of them possessed of one of these needles, made a kind of dial-plate, inscribing it with the four-and-twenty letters, in the same manner as the hours of the day are marked upon the ordinary dialplate.
Page 7 - We trust that Parliament will, in all railways it may sanction, limit the speed to eight or nine miles an hour, which we entirely agree with Mr. Sylvester is as great as can be ventured on with safety.
Page 57 - Strada, in one of his Prolusions*, gives an account of a chimerical correspondence between two friends by the help of a certain load-stone, which had such virtue in it, that if it touched two several needles, when one of the needles so touched began to move, the other, though at never so great a distance, moved at the same time, and in the same manner.
Page 58 - Accordingly, when they were some hundred miles asunder, each of them shut himself up in his closet at the time appointed, and immediately cast his eye upon his dial-plate. If he had a mind to write anything to his friend, he directed his needle to every letter that formed the words...
Page 3 - In 1742, the Oxford stage-coach left London at seven o'clock in the morning, and reached Uxbridge at mid-day. It arrived at High Wycombe at five in the evening, where it rested for the night ; and proceeded at the same rate for the seat of learning on the morrow. Here, then, were ten hours consumed each day in travelling twenty-seven miles ; and nearly two days in performing what is now done with the greatest ease under six hours.
Page 2 - has no serious trial yet been made of the qualifications of so diligent a courier ? and if he should be proved competent to the task, why should not our kings hold councils at Brighton with their Ministers in London ? Why should not our Government govern at Portsmouth almost as promptly as at...
Page 7 - We should as soon expect the people of Woolwich to suffer themselves to be fired off upon one of Congreve's ricochet rockets, as trust themselves to the mercy of such a machine going at such a rate.