Part 46

Soaps referred to above are the ordinary hard soaps. In making soft soaps no salt is added to separate the soap from the liquid. As the water and glycerine do not separate from the soap, the entire mixture remains of a soft consistency. Soft soap is also made with a lye, that is obtained from wood ashes. The ashes are placed in barrels and water poured upon them. The water drips down through the ashes in the barrel and dissolves the potash contained in them, making lye or caustic potash. This lye is then in liquid form and is mixed and boiled with grease or fat to make soap.

There are many different fats used in soap making. Palm oil is perhaps the most common, but tallow, olive oil, cotton seed oil, and many other fats are used. The hardness of the soap varies with the kind of fat and lye used. Palm oil or tallow soap is very hard, and other oils are sometimes mixed with it to soften it.

These are the main facts connected with the making of soaps. There may appear to be different kinds all of which look and smell differently. The difference in them is largely due to the presence of different perfumes and coloring matters.

[Illustration: INDIAN SENDING MESSAGE WITH SMOKE SIGNALS.

The savage Indians found their system of smoke signals quite effective in sending messages from place to place. With a good burning fire before him, and a blanket or shield at hand, the Indian was equipped to send his messages. The code consisted of the varying kinds of smoke clouds produced. These were made large or small by covering the fire at intervals with the blanket or shield, thus making interruptions of various lengths in the rising clouds of smoke. By dropping moss or other things into the fire, he made the smoke clouds either light or dark at will.]

The Story in a Telegram

How Man Learned to Send Messages.

From the time when man had learned to protect himself from the beasts of the forest, and thus was able to move about more freely, and live by himself rather than remain with the tribe, he has found it necessary to send messages.

One of the most interesting of the early methods for sending messages was the Indian way of smoke signalling with the simple equipment of a fire with its rising column of smoke and a blanket or shield. Messages were sent, relayed, received and answered, at points hundreds of miles apart. Among savages still found in remote parts of the earth this and other primitive methods are still in use. In the wilds of Africa to-day at points where the electric telegraph service has not yet penetrated, the natives by the simple method of beating drums, which can be heard from one relay point to another, are able to send the “news of the day” across the country with marvellous rapidity. In some parts of South America, the natives long ago discovered that the ground is a good conductor of sound and send their messages almost at will, making their signals by tapping against poles which they have planted in the ground at various points and which constitute both their sending and receiving instruments.

The Signal Corps in the army uses flags for sending messages, where the telegraph is not available, the flags being of different colors, and the signals are produced by waving the flags in different ways. The army heliograph is also used as a telegraph line--a mirror which reflects the sun’s rays in a manner understood by a prearranged code. These and other similar methods are merely elaborations of devices developed and used by the savages as a solution of the ever present need of sending a message to some other point.

[Illustration: THE FIRST MESSENGER BOY

THE GREEK RUNNER.

In this picture we see the Greek Runner on the last leg of his journey and the man to whom he is to deliver the message waiting for him. This method of sending messages was not very fast, although the runners were picked because of their speed and endurance.]

[Illustration: THE PONY TELEGRAPH.

Here we see the fast riders of the Pony Telegraph, which increased the speed of delivering messages quite a good deal, but, of course, there was danger of losing the message to enemies or through accident, so that it might be difficult under such circumstances to send a secret message or to even be certain that it would arrive at destination.]

[Illustration: IT IS EASY TO CALL A TELEGRAPH MESSENGER...

RINGING THE CALL BOX.]

The great Marathon runner was nothing more or less than a telegraph messenger hastening with his written message, from the man who delivered it to him, to its destination, and his work was harder than that of the messenger boy to-day, for he not only had to deliver the message himself to its destination, but had to run fast all the way or lose his job.

The messenger on foot finally gave way to the Pony Telegraph, which not only shortened the time necessary to deliver a message, but marked the beginning of a system.

[Illustration: MESSENGER BOYS WITH BICYCLES WAITING THE CALL.]

How Does a Telegram Get There?

The next time your daddy takes you down to the office, ask him to show you the telegraph call box. When you see it, you will perhaps not think that by merely pulling down the little lever you can so start things going that, if you wish, you can cause men who are on the other side of the earth to work for you in a few minutes, and to make little instruments all along the way which, with their other equipment, have cost millions of dollars, click, click, click at your will.

[Illustration: ...BUT MANY TELEGRAPH EMPLOYEES MUST WORK...

Here we see the messenger calling at the office from which the call box registered a call and receiving the telegram to be taken by him to the central office to be put on the wire.]

[Illustration: When the messenger gets back to the office, he hands the message to the receiving clerk who stamps it, showing the exact time received and sends it by pneumatic tube to the operating room.]

Sooner or later during the day your father will be wanting to send a telegram. He steps to the call box, pulls the little lever and goes back to his desk. In a few minutes, sometimes before you realize it, the little blue-coated messenger appears and says “Call?” Father hands him a telegraph blank on which he has written the message, the messenger takes off his cap, puts the message inside and the cap back on his head and away he goes on his bicycle as fast as his legs can pedal, to the central office, to which point you follow him to see what he does with the message.

If you had been at the telegraph office instead of your father’s office, you would have seen one of these boys start off on his wheel to get the message your father wished to send. When the little lever on the call box is pulled down, it is pulled back by a spring which sets some clock work going which sends a signal over the wire on a circuit which runs out from a register at the main office. The register has a paper tape running through it, and the signal from the call box appears as a series of dots on the tape. The clerk knows from the number and spacing of the dots that it was your father that called and not some other business man whose box might be on the same circuit.

[Illustration: ...BEFORE THE TELEGRAPH SERVICE IS POSSIBLE AND...

We have now followed the telegram to the point where it is to start on its real journey. Here we see the operator preparing to send the message. He first must “get the wire.” By this is meant to get a through connection to the town where the message is to be delivered. Each office along the line has a signal. The other operators can hear the call, but since it is not their signal, they pay no attention. Almost immediately, however, the operator at the delivery point hears the signal. He signals back “I I” and repeats his own office call, which means “I hear you and am ready.” The message is then ticked off, until finished and the operator at the delivery point signals “O. K.,” together with his personal signal, which means he has received the whole message and has it down on paper.]

[Illustration: Here we see the operator at the delivery office. She has translated the dots and dashes as they came to her over the wire into plain words on a regular telegraph blank, putting down the time received, the amount to be collected, if it is a “collect” message, or marking it “Paid” if it was so sent. She has handed it to one of the blue-clad messengers in her office who starts off at once to deliver it. The operator has also made a copy of the message for the office files.]

[Illustration: ...THE TELEGRAM ARRIVES AT DESTINATION

Here we see the messenger delivering the telegram to the person to whom it is addressed. It may be good news or bad news for the person receiving it, but it is all in the day’s work for the messenger boy. But let us see how many people have to work to deliver the message. We have followed it through from the original call box. First there was the messenger who came for it, then the receiving clerk, the sending operator and the operator who receives it and last of all the messenger boy who delivered it. This does not take into account the men who must look after the many miles of wires, the machinery which supplies the current, or the great army of men who are constantly laying new wires so that you can send a telegram from almost anywhere to any other place.]

The operators you have seen working in these pictures are Morse operators. They send the message by Morse Code in dots and dashes which are sent over the wire as electric impulses. At the other end the message is read by listening to the clicks the sounder makes as it receives these same electric impulses. This is the simplest way of telegraphing.

The number of messages sent between two big cities in a day is tremendous--many more than could be transmitted over one Morse wire. Many wires would be needed. But wire costs money, so ingenious men set to work to find some way to send more than one message over a single wire at the same time. They succeeded. There is now the duplex telegraph, which sends a message each way simultaneously over a single wire, the quadruplex, which sends two messages each way simultaneously over a single wire. Last but not least there is the multiplex, which sends four messages each way simultaneously over a single wire. This seems almost unbelievable, but it is done. In the case of the duplex and quadruplex, the different messages are sent by currents of different strength, and by changing the direction of the current. Receiving instruments are designed so as to separate the messages by being affected only by the currents of certain strength or polarity, as the direction of flow is termed. It can easily be seen that by these ingenious devices, the telegraph company saves many thousands of dollars in the miles and miles of wire, and hundreds of telegraph poles which would be required if all the messages had to be sent over a simple Morse wire, one message only upon the wire at a time.

[Illustration: THE WONDERFUL ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH SYSTEM...

In this picture we see the interior of a telegraph office along the line of a railroad. The operator has her hand on the “key” or sending instrument. At her left in a stand called the resonator, is the receiving instrument called the “sounder” which clicks off the message. In front of her is an instrument called the “relay.” Current from two of the batteries goes through the key when it is pressed down, through the relay and out on to the wires of the pole line, then through the relay of the receiving operator at the other end, (see picture on opposite page) through his key and through two more batteries to the ground. The earth forms the return wire of an electric circuit when both keys are “closed” or pressed down. You know all electricity has to flow in a closed circuit. The “sounder” has to make good strong clicks to be understood, and the current after it has gone through miles of wire and ground may not be strong enough so the sounder is put on a local circuit of its own, with a special battery. In this circuit is a contact maker which is part of the relay. When the key is pressed down and current flows over the wires on the poles and through the relays, the magnets of the relay pull on a little piece of metal called the “armature,” which makes a contact and closes the local sounder circuit, so current from the single local battery can flow up through the magnets of the sounder and back to the battery. This makes the sounder click. When the key is released, the relay armature is pulled back by a spring and breaks the circuit of sounder, which then emits another click. By the number and duration of the clicks and the time between them, the receiving operator knows the meaning of the signal. The Morse Code, which is used throughout the United States, is shown on next page.]

[Illustration: ...SENDS MESSAGES THOUSANDS OF MILES INSTANTANEOUSLY

MORSE TELEGRAPH CODE

Letters Morse A · -- B -- · · · C · · · D -- · · E · F · -- · G -- -- · H · · · · I · · J -- · -- · K -- · -- L ---- M -- -- N -- · O · · P · · · · · Q · · -- · R · · · S · · · T -- U · · -- V · · · -- W · -- -- X · -- · · Y · · · · Z · · · · & · · · ·

Numerals

Figures Morse 1 · -- -- · 2 · · -- · · 3 · · · -- · 4 · · · · -- 5 -- -- -- 6 · · · · · · 7 -- -- · 8 -- · · · · 9 -- · · -- 0 ----

Punctuations

. Period · · -- -- · · : Colon -- · -- · · ; Semicolon · · · · · , Comma · -- · -- ? Interrogation -- · · -- · ! Exclamation -- -- -- · - Fraction Line · ¶ Paragraph -- -- -- -- () Parenthesis · -- ·· --]

The multiplex telegraph is truly a marvellous invention. It has been developed by the engineers of the Western Union Telegraph Co. working with the engineers of the Western Electric Company. The principle on which this instrument works is that if separate instruments are given connection with the wire one after the other during very short intervals of time, the effect is as though the wire were split up, and each instrument works just as if it alone were on the wire. Not only does the multiplex telegraph thus send four messages in one direction and four messages in the opposite direction, simultaneously over a single wire, thus keeping no less than sixteen operators employed on one wire, four sending and four receiving at each end, but each message instead of being sent by the ordinary Morse key, is written upon a typewriter keyboard at one end of the line and appears automatically typewritten at the other end.

If you live in a big city, go into one of the larger branch offices of the Western Union Telegraph Co. and ask to see printing telegraph. Most of the large branch offices communicate with the general operating department in the city by means of what they term “short line printers,” which are instruments on which the message is written upon a typewriter keyboard and appears typewritten at the other end.

Who Invented the Electric Telegraph?

It is hard to say just how the telegraph originated in the mind of men. We have already shown how the savages sent signals over distances by means of the smoke rising from his fire. Every boy and girl has used a little mirror, held in the sun to flash a bright spot here and there. This principle has been used by the army to signal at distances. The sun’s rays are flashed from a small mirror, long and short flashes indicating the dashes and dots of the Morse telegraph code.

[Illustration: PROFESSOR S. F. B. MORSE, INVENTOR OF THE TELEGRAPH.]

Progress towards the perfection of the electric telegraph began with the first researches of scientists into the natural laws which govern that great natural agent, electricity. Clever, painstaking men, studying and experimenting for the love of the work, discovered bit by bit how to control the force. Stephen Gray with his Leyden jars, which stored up a charge of electricity, inspired Sir William Watson to experiment, and he sent current from one jar to another two miles away.

The First Suggestion of the Electric Telegraph.

For a long time no one thought that this opened the way for the making of a useful servant for man. In 1753 this thought occurred to an unknown man in Scotland, who wrote a letter to a newspaper suggesting that messages be sent by electric currents.

One of his schemes was that there should be a light ball at the receiving end of the wire which would strike a bell when it felt the electric impulse come over the wire from the Leyden jar, and by devising a code depending upon the number of strokes of the bell and the time between them, he suggested that messages could be sent and interpreted. Some believe this man to have been a doctor named Charles Morrison of Greenock, Scotland. Whoever he was, he suggested a method which comes very near to being that in use to-day.

The difficulty with proceeding on this suggestion was that the current from the Leyden jar was static electricity, which has not the strength nor can it be controlled as can the current of low potential which is used to-day. Volta discovered this new and more stable form of electricity and many different men labored investigating what could be accomplished with it. The names of Sir Humphry Davy and Michael Faraday are inseparably connected with this advance. It was Oersted’s and Faraday’s discovery of the connection between electricity and magnetism, and how an electric current may be made to magnetize a piece of iron at will, that really opened the way for the invention of the telegraph we know to-day.

The First Real Telegraph.

But before the much greater practical value of Volta’s current was discovered, one man developed a real telegraph which worked with electricity of the static kind, produced by friction. This man was named Sir Francis Ronalds. He worked along the lines laid down by the unknown Scotchman, whom we have supposed to be Charles Morrison. The machine he built and operated in his garden at Hammersmith utilized pith balls, which actuated by the charge of static electricity sent along the wire caused a letter to appear before an opening in the dial. When perfected he offered it to the British Government, who refused it. They were very stupid in their refusal, for they said “telegraphs are wholly unnecessary.” Sir Francis Ronalds’ invention cost him much care, anxiety and money. He lived to see the more practical voltaic current taken up by others and put to successful use. Being unselfish he rejoiced that others should succeed where he had failed.

Two Men who Invented our Telegraph almost Simultaneously.

The telegraph, working on the electro-magnetic principle, as used to-day, was developed almost simultaneously on the two sides of the Atlantic Ocean. In England Sir Charles Wheatstone and Sir William Fothergill Cooke worked out a practical method and instruments, which with few changes, are in use to-day. Cooke was a doctor and had served with the British army in India. Wheatstone was the son of a Gloucester musical instrument maker. The latter was fond of science and experimented continually with electricity and wrote about it and other scientific subjects. As a result of his work he was made a professor at King’s College. There he conducted important researches and tests, among which was one which measured the speed at which electricity travels along a wire. So Cooke, who was a doctor and a good business man, entered into partnership with the scientist Wheatstone, and together they completed their invention. It was first used in 1838 on the London and Blackwall Railway. At first it was expensive and cumbersome, using five lines of wire. Later this number was reduced to two, and in 1845, an instrument was devised which required but one wire. This instrument, with a few minor changes, is the one in use to-day in England.

While these two men were working in England, an American artist, S. F. B. Morse, was studying and experimenting in the United States along his own lines but with the same end in view, namely to produce instruments which would satisfactorily send messages over a wire by electricity.

An American, however, is given the honor of First by Slight Margin.

Morse was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1791. He was gifted as an artist, both in painting and sculpture, and in 1811 went abroad to England to study. While on a voyage from Havre to America in 1832 he met on board ship a Dr. Jackson, who told him of the latest scientific discoveries in regard to the electric current and the electro-magnet. This set Morse to thinking and after three years’ hard work on the problem he produced a telegraph which worked on the principle of the electro-magnet. With the apparatus devised by Morse and his partner Alfred Vail, a message was sent from Washington to Baltimore in 1844.

There has been some question as to whether Morse or Wheatstone first invented a workable telegraph. As will be evident from this history, the telegraph in principle was a gradual development, to which many minds contributed. To Morse, however, the high authority of the Supreme Court of the United States has given the credit of being the first to perfect a practical instrument, saying that the Morse invention “preceded the three European inventions” and that it would be impossible to examine the latter without perceiving at once “the decided superiority of the one invented by Professor Morse.”

Uncle Sam Helped Build the First Telegraph Line.

~FIRST TELEGRAPH LINE FROM BALTIMORE TO WASHINGTON~