ANCIENT METHODS OF SIGNALLING.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6120, 5 March 1898, Page 2

ANCIENT METHODS OF SIGNALLING.

(Cornhill magazine.) Probably, the simplest and earliest form of long-distance signalling is that by beacon fires. In climates where the atmosphere is usually clear, and the country is not too Hat, this method can generally be relied upon for forwarding clear signals of smoke by day and light by night. Thus, in Holy Writ, Jeremiah refers to the former and Isaiah to the latter; indeed, the use of beacons may almost be said to be "as old as the hills " on whose tops they are placed. Relays of torch-holders were also frequently employed by the ancients. According to JEschylus, the taking of Troy — after its ten years' siege by Agamemnon three thousand year3 ago — was made known in Greece to his wife, Queen Clytemnestra, by beacons- lighted on Mounts Ida, Athos, Cithteron and other intervening heights. Fire signals were also i7sed by Mardonius in the time of Xerxes, and are mentioned frequently in Thucydides. We read that signalling by light was turned to a very tender purpose by Hero, the beautiful priestess of Venus, in her love for Leander, to whom she displayed a lamp in her tower at Sestos j whenever he was to swim across the Hellespont from Abydos to see her. But one night the lamp was blown out — he was drowned, and she then threw herself into the waves. Theseus, in the Argonautic expedition, adopted another form of visual signals — namely, the colours of the sails hoisted, but killed his father through a telegraphic error ; for, flushed with victory, he forgot his signal, and old iEgeus, seeing the black sail, and feeling sure his I son was dead, flung himself into the sea. i It was these wideawake people also who employed the clepsydra, a very clever contrivance, for night communication afar This invention was attributed to. the tactician Arnias. It consisted of a tall vessel containing water, which was let out slowly by a tap at the bottom ; on the water floated a cork disc, carrying a gauge with divisions down the side, and on each division a separate sentence was inscribed. Each signalling point had one of these contrivances; and on a light being shown trom one station it was acknowledged by the other, and each clepsydra opened at the mom / n h When the surface of the water receded to the sentence required, the signalling station again showed a light, when the other stopped the outflow and read the words inscribed at the water level upon the corresponding gauge. Hannibal erected watch-towers in Africa ??? I™° ° T* from i whenever .the Romans extended their conquests in nf ,L-i Pain '- Or elsew fcere, they made use S an^Ll ° nQ £ telegraph towers ib engraved ou Trajan's Cafimn. These,

towers, the ruins of which are still to be iff'n in various parts of France, very likely suggested the idea of aerial telegraphy to tho brothers Chappe and other inventors of the eighteenth century. But for the absence of field-glasses, the it'owans might, and not improbably would, have developed the aaine (semaphore) system as that of their modern successors. Polybius perfected an alphabetical method of camp signals, supposed to have been originated by Clooxenes. The letters of the alphabet were divided into five or six sections, with columas corresponding to each. The number of the letter at a given moment signalled from each column was indicated by the number of torches held up. Julius Africanus described a somewhat similar system in which the letters were divided into three sections only.