Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 44.djvu/812

794 the 22d of March, 1792, his invention. He read his petition himself, submitting "a discovery which he thought useful to the public welfare," and presenting a facile means of communicating rapidly at great distances all that which might be the object of a correspondence. He could from them transmit the recital of a fact at night as well as at day over a space of forty



miles in less than forty-six minutes, and in a manner almost as rapid at a distance very much greater.

The Assembly accepted the tender of the machine, sent the petition to the examination of the Committee of Public Instruction, and admitted Chappe to the honors of the sitting.

Unfortunately for him, the commissioners could not attend any experiment; the ignorant populace destroyed the machine which he had constructed at Belleville. The unlucky inventor had, therefore, to demand aid and protection, with indemnity for the necessary repairs.