Page:The fairy tales of science.djvu/41

 We will not trouble our reader with any more explanations, but will confine ourselves to a consideration of some of the ingenious methods which have been devised to render the Amber Spirit a useful messenger.

Some twenty years ago, a native of this country proposed a system of five wires, in connexion with as many needles, which indicated the letters of the alphabet at the rate of twenty a minute. Attention was to be drawn to the signals by the stroke of a bell, the hammer of which was moved by the magnetic force which the Spirit communicated to a piece of iron; thus the ear as well as the eye was to be addressed. He afterwards simplified this instrument by employing only two wires, and so increased its power that thirty letters could be indicated in a minute.

In America, another philosopher was simultaneously engaged in perfecting a still more extraordinary contrivance, by means of which the Spirit was made to jot down an alphabet of dots and strokes which represented definite characters. The marks were written on a strip of chemically prepared paper, which was made to pass under a fine steel point.

The Spirit had no sooner been taught to write, than man set about teaching him the art of printing. Behold him now, a master of the art, printing