A semaphore line, optical telegraph, shutter telegraph chain, Chappe telegraph, or Napoleonic semaphore is a system of conveying information by means of visual signals, using towers with pivoting shutters, also known as blades or paddles. The Louvre Museum (Musée du Louvre located in Paris is the world's most visited art museum a historic monument and a national museum of France This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. Napoleon Bonaparte (15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821 was a French military and political leader who had a significant impact on the History of Europe. Information is encoded by the position of the mechanical elements; it is read when the shutter is in a fixed position. These systems were popular in the late 18th - early 19th century. In modern usage, "semaphore line" and "optical telegraph" may refer to a relay system using flag semaphore. Flag semaphore is a system for conveying information at a distance by means of visual signals with hand-held flags rods disks paddles or occasionally bare or gloved hands
Semaphore lines were the prototype of the electrical telegraph. The electrical telegraph is a telegraph that uses electric signals The electromagnetic telegraph is a device for human-to-human transmission They were faster than post riders for bringing a message over long distances, but far more expensive and less private than the electrical telegraph lines which would replace them. Post riders or postriders describes a Horse and rider Postal delivery system that existed at various times and various places throughout history The electrical telegraph is a telegraph that uses electric signals The electromagnetic telegraph is a device for human-to-human transmission The distance that an optical telegraph can bridge is limited by geography and weather, thus in practical use, most optical telegraphs used lines of relay stations to bridge longer distances.
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History
Optical telegraphy dates from ancient times, in the form of hydraulic telegraphs, torches (as used by ancient Greeks) and smoke signals. Claude Chappe ( December 25, 1763 &ndash January 23, 1805) was a French inventor who in 1792 demonstrated a practical semaphore system The hydraulic telegraph was a semaphore system invented in the 4th century BC by Aeneas Tacticus; according to Polybius, it was used during the First The smoke signal is one of the oldest forms of communication in recorded history
Modern design of semaphores was first foreseen by the English scientist Robert Hooke, who first gave a vivid and comprehensive outline of visual telegraphy to the Royal Society in a submission dated 1684 in which he outlined many practical details. Robert Hooke, FRS (18 July 1635 – 3 March 1703 was an English Natural philosopher and Polymath who played an important role in the The Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, known simply as The Royal Society, is a Learned society for science that was founded in 1660 The system (motivated by military concerns, following the recent Battle of Vienna in 1683) was never put into practice. The Battle of Vienna ( German: Schlacht am Kahlenberg, Polish: Bitwa pod Wiedniem or Odsiecz Wiedeńska, Turkish: İkinci [1][2]
The first achieved optical telegraph arrived only in 1792 from the French engineer Claude Chappe and his brothers, who succeeded in covering France with a network of 556 stations stretching a total distance of 4,800 kilometres. Claude Chappe ( December 25, 1763 &ndash January 23, 1805) was a French inventor who in 1792 demonstrated a practical semaphore system This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. It was used for military and national communications until the 1850s.
Many national services adopted signaling systems different from the Chappe system. For example, Britain and Sweden adopted systems of shuttered panels (in contradiction to the Chappe brothers' contention that angled rods are more visible). The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located "Sverige" redirects here For other uses see Sweden (disambiguation and Sverige (disambiguation. In Spain, the engineer Agustín de Betancourt developed his own system which was adopted by that state. Spain () or the Kingdom of Spain (Reino de España is a country located mostly in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Agustín de Betancourt y Molina ( Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife, Spain, 1758 – Saint Petersburg, Russia, 1824 was a prominent This system was considered by many experts in Europe better than Chappe's, even in France.
France
There was a desperate need for swift and reliable communications in France during the period of 1790-1795. Saverne (Saverne savɛʁn Alsatian: Zawere, pronounced; Zabern is a town and commune of France in the région of This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. It was the height of the French revolution, and France was surrounded by the enemy forces of England, The Netherlands, Prussia, Austria, and Spain. The French Revolution (1789–1799 was a period of political and social upheaval in the History of France, during which the French governmental structure previously an England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland The Netherlands ( Dutch:, ˈnedərlɑnt is the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which consists of the Netherlands the Netherlands Prussia ( Latin: Borussia, Prutenia; Prūsija Prūsija Prusy Old Prussian: Prūsa) was most recently a historic state Austria (Österreich ( officially the Republic of Austria (Republik Österreich Spain () or the Kingdom of Spain (Reino de España is a country located mostly in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. The cities of Marseilles and Lyon were in revolt, and the English Fleet held Toulon. Marseille, ( English alt Marseilles mɑrˈseɪ — French: maʁsɛj locally — Provençal Occitan: Marselha maʀˈsijɔ ||-||} Lyon, also known as Lyons in English is a city in east-central France. The British Royal Navy was formally created after the Union between England and Scotland in 1707 which merged the English Navy with the Royal Scots Navy Toulon ( Provençal Occitan: Tolon in classical norm or Touloun in Mistralian norm is a city in southern France and a large In this situation the only advantage France held was the lack of cooperation between the allied forces due to their inadequate lines of communications.
The Chappe brothers in the summer of 1790 set about to devise a system of communication that would allow the central government to receive intelligence and to transmit orders in the shortest possible time. On March 2, 1791 at 11 A. Events 986 - Louis V becomes King of the Franks. 1127 - Assassination of Charles the Good Year 1791 ( MDCCXCI) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common M. , Chappe and his brother sent the message “si vous reussissez, vous serez bientôt couvert de gloire” (If you succeed, you will soon bask in glory) between Brulon and Parce, a distance of ten miles (16 km). The first means used a combination of black and white panels, clocks, telescopes, and codebooks to send their message.
The Chappes carried out experiments during the next two years, and on two occasions their apparatus at Place de l'Étoile, Paris was destroyed by mobs who thought they were communicating with royalist forces. The Place de l'Étoile is a large Road junction in Paris, France, the meeting point of twelve straight avenues (hence the name "Star Square" Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city The Chouannerie was a royalist uprising in twelve of the western departements of France (particularly Brittany and Maine) against the French However in the summer of 1792 Claude was appointed Ingénieur-Télégraphiste and charged with establishing a line of stations between Paris and Lille, a distance of 230 kilometres (about 143 miles). Lille (lil Rijsel is a city in northern France. It is the principal city of the Lille Métropole, the fourth-largest Metropolitan area in the country It was used to carry dispatches for the war between France and Austria. In 1794, it brought news of a French capture of Condé-sur-l'Escaut from the Austrians less than an hour after it occurred. Condé-sur-l'Escaut is a commune of France, in the Nord Départment of the region Nord-Pas de Calais, in northeast France along the The first symbol of a message to Lille would pass through 15 stations in only nine minutes. The speed of the line varied with the weather, but the line to Lille typically transferred 36 symbols, a complete message, in about 32 minutes.
Paris to Strasbourg with 50 stations was the next line and others followed soon after. Strasbourg (Strasbourg stʁazbuʁ Alsatian: Strossburi,; Straßburg) is the capital and principal City of the Alsace région By 1824, the Chappe brothers were promoting the semaphore lines for commercial use, especially to transmit the costs of commodities. A commodity is anything for which there is demand but which is supplied without qualitative differentiation across a market Napoleon Bonaparte saw the military advantage in being able to transmit information between locations, and carried a portable semaphore with his headquarters. Napoleon Bonaparte (15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821 was a French military and political leader who had a significant impact on the History of Europe. This allowed him to coordinate forces and logistics over longer distances than any other army of his time. However because stations had to be within sight of each other, and because the efficient operation of the network required well trained and disciplined operators, the costs of administration and wages were a continuous source of financial difficulties. Only when the system was funded by the proceeds of its own lottery did costs come under control.
In 1821 Norwich Duff, a young British Naval officer, visiting Clermont en Argonne, walked up to the telegraph station there and engaged the signalman in conversation. Here is his note of the man's information:
The pay is twenty five sous per day and he (the signalman) is obliged to be there from day light till dark, at present from half past three till half past eight; there are only two of them and for every minute a signal is left without being answered they pay five sous: this is a part of the branch which communicates with Strasburg and a message arrives there from Paris in six minutes it is here in four.
Relative costs
The semaphore system was cleverly designed, and provided a strategic advantage for France in a difficult time. However, it was almost 30 times more expensive per message than the electric telegraph. Here's a brief breakdown using (inflation-adjusted) US$:
Semaphore line, 120 miles (Paris to Lille)
- 15 towers ($1,500,000)
- At least 15 full-time operators ($450,000/year).
- Operates at most ten hours a day.
- Sends roughly 2 words per minute (1 symbol per minute, at 2 symbols per phrase, using the efficient directors' codebook).
- Cost to send one word one mile (1. 6 km), at 10% markup: $0. 0114
Electric Telegraph line, 120 miles (190 km)
- At least six full-time operators ($180,000/year)
- Poles, right-of-way, wires, installation: $15,000/mile, ($1,800,000)
- Operates 24 hours a day.
- Sends 15 words per minute (includes breaks for the operators).
- Cost to send one word one mile (1. 6 km), at 10% markup: $0. 0003809
Description
The Chappe brothers determined by experiment that it was easier to see the angle of a rod than to see the presence or absence of a panel. Their semaphore was composed of black movable wooden arms, the position of which indicated alphabetic letters. With counterweights on the arms, the Chappe system was controlled by only two handles and was mechanically simple and reasonably rugged. Each of the two arms showed seven positions, and the cross bar connecting the two arms had four different angles, for a total of 196 symbols (7x7x4). Night operation with lamps on the arms was unsuccessful.
To speed-up transmission and to provide some semblance of security a code book was developed for use with semaphore lines. In Communications a code is a rule for converting a piece of Information (for example a letter, Word, Phrase, or The Chappes' corporation used a code that took 92 of the basic symbols two at a time to yield 8,464 coded words and phrases.
Sweden
At the same time as Chappe, the Swede Abraham Niclas Edelcrantz experimented with the optical telegraph in Sweden. "Sverige" redirects here For other uses see Sweden (disambiguation and Sverige (disambiguation. In 1794 he inaugurated his telegraph with a poem dedicated to the Swedish King on his birthday. The message went from the Palace in Stockholm to the King at Drottningholm. ('stɔkhɔlm is Sweden 's Capital and its largest City. It is the site of the national Swedish government, the parliament, and the Drottningholm, or literally "Queen's Islet" is a village on the island Lovön in lake Mälaren on the outskirts of Stockholm ( Ekerö Municipality
Edelcrantz eventually developed his own system which was quite different from its French counterpart and nearly twice as fast. The system was based on ten collapsible iron shutters. The various positions of the shutters formed combinations of numbers which were translated into letters, words or phrases via codebooks. The telegraph network consisted of telegraph stations positioned at about 10 kilometres from one another.
Soon telegraph circuits linking castles and fortresses in the neighbourhood of Stockholm were set up and the system was extended to Grisslehamn and Åland. Subsequently telegraph circuits were introduced between Gothenburg and Marstrand, at Helsingborg and between Karlskrona and its fortresses. Sweden was the second country in the world, after France, to introduce an optical telegraph network. The Swedish optical telegraph network was restricted to the archipelagoes of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Karlskrona. ('stɔkhɔlm is Sweden 's Capital and its largest City. It is the site of the national Swedish government, the parliament, and the Gothenburg ( Swedish:) /jœte'bɔrj/ is a city, a municipality, and an urban area on the west-coast of Sweden. Karlskrona is a city in the province of Blekinge in south-eastern Sweden. Like its French counterpart, it was mainly used for military purposes.
U. K.
Lord George Murray, stimulated by reports of the Chappe semaphore, proposed a system of visual telegraphy to the British Admiralty. Lord George Murray ( January 30, 1761 &ndash June 3, 1803) was an Anglican cleric best remembered for his work developing Britain's The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the United Kingdom responsible for the command of the Royal Navy. He employed large wooden boards on his towers with six large holes which could be closed by shutters. Starting in 1795, chains of shutter telegraph stations were built along these routes:
Liverpool - Holyhead
Liverpool, Bidston, Hilbre Island, Voel Nant, Foryd, Llysfaen, Puffin Island, Point Lynas, Carreglwyd, Cefn Du, Holyhead [3]
London - Deal and Sheerness
Admiralty (London), West Square Southwark, New Cross, Shooter's Hill, Swanscombe, Gad's Hill, Callum Hill, Beacon Hill (Faversham, branch point), Shottenden, Barham Downs, Betteshanger, Deal. Liverpool ( is a City and Metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary Bidston is a suburb of Birkenhead, on the Wirral Peninsula, Merseyside, England. Hilbre Island (ˈhɪlbriː HILL-bree) is the largest of a group of three Islands at the mouth of the Estuary of the River Dee, which is a Llysfaen is a Village in Conwy county borough on the coast of north Wales. Point Lynas Lighthouse is located on the north coast of Anglesey in North Wales. Holyhead ( IPA /ˈhɒlihɛd/ Welsh: Caergybi, "the fort of Saint Cybi " is the largest town in the county of The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the United Kingdom responsible for the command of the Royal Navy. London ( ˈlʌndən is the capital and largest urban area in the United Kingdom. Southwark or The Borough is an area of south-east London in the London Borough of Southwark, situated 1 New Cross is a place and an electoral ward in the London Borough of Lewisham, it is covered by London postal district SE14 Shooter's Hill (or Shooters Hill) is a place and an electoral ward in the London Borough of Greenwich in south-east London. Higham is a small village bordering the Hoo Peninsula, in Kent, between Gravesend and Rochester. In Cryptography, DEAL ( Data Encryption Algorithm with Larger blocks) is a Block cipher derived from the Data Encryption Standard (DES
(branch) Beacon Hill (Faversham), Tonge, Barrow Hill, Sheerness. Sheerness (ˈʃɪərnɪs is a town located beside the mouth of the River Medway on the northwest corner of the Isle of Sheppey in north Kent, England
London - Great Yarmouth
Admiralty (London), Hampstead Heath (Telegraph Hill), Woodcock Hill, St Albans, Dunstable Downs, Lilley Hoo, Baldock, Royston, Gog Magog Hills, Newmarket (Side Hill), Icklingham, Barnham, East Harling, Carleton Rode, Wreningham, Norwich, Strumpshaw, Great Yarmouth. Hampstead Heath (locally known as "the Heath" is London 's largest ancient parkland covering 3 St Albans is the main urban area of the City and District of St Albans in southern Hertfordshire, England, around north of central London. The Dunstable and Whipsnade Downs (usually known as the Dunstable Downs) are a 73 The town Baldock is a town in Hertfordshire, England where the River Ivel rises Royston is a town and Civil parish in the District of North Hertfordshire, Hertfordshire, England. The Gog Magog Downs (also known as the Gog Magog Hills or simply the Gogs) are a range of low Chalk hills extending for several miles to the southeast Barnham is a village and Civil parish in the St Edmundsbury district of Suffolk, England. East Harling is a Village in the English county of Norfolk. The village forms the principal settlement in the civil parish of Harling, and is Carleton Rode is a village (population 727 in Norfolk, England, situated approximately five miles south-east of Attleborough. Wreningham is a Village and Civil parish in the English County of Norfolk. History Roman The Romans had their regional capital at Venta Icenorum on the river to the south which is near modern-day Caistor St Edmund Strumpshaw is a Village (population 602 on the River Yare in Norfolk, England, within The Broads National Park. Great Yarmouth, often known to locals as Yarmouth, is a Coastal Town in Norfolk, England.
London - Portsmouth and Plymouth
Admiralty (London), Chelsea Royal Hospital, Putney Heath, Cabbage Hill, Netley Heath, Hascombe, Blackdown, Beacon Hill (branch point), Portsdown Hill, Portsmouth (Southsea Common). The Royal Hospital Chelsea is a Retirement home and Nursing home for British Soldiers who are unfit for further duty due to Wimbledon and Putney Commons are a large open space in south-west London, totalling 1140 acres (4 The village of Hascombe contains a cluster of cottages and country estates St Peter's church the village green and The White Horse pub all nestling between wooded hillsides in Blackdown, or Black Down, is the highest hill in the historic county of Sussex, at 280 metres (918 feet and is second only to Leith Hill (295 metres Harting is a Civil parish in the Chichester District of West Sussex, England, situated on northern flank of the South Downs. Portsdown Hill is a long Chalk hill in Hampshire, England, offering good views over Portsmouth, The Solent, Hayling Island History See also History of Portsmouth There have been settlements in the area since before Roman times mostly being offshoots of Portchester, which
(branch) Beacon Hill, Chalton, Wickham, Town Hill, Toot Hill, Bramshaw, Pistle Down, Chalbury, Blandford racecourse, Belchalwell, Nettlecombe Tout, High Stoy, Toller Down, Lamberts Castle, Dalwood Common, St Cyrus, Rockbeare, Gt Halden, South Knighton, Marley, Lee, Saltram, Plymouth. Harting is a Civil parish in the Chichester District of West Sussex, England, situated on northern flank of the South Downs. Chalton is a small village and Civil parish in the East Hampshire district of Hampshire, England. Wickham, formerly spelled Wykeham, is a Civil parish and small Market town in Hampshire, southern England, about three miles Bramshaw is a small village in Hampshire, England. It lies just inside the New Forest. Chalbury is a village in east Dorset, England, four Miles north of Wimborne Minster and four miles west of Verwood. Blandford Camp is a Military base comprising some 390 Hectares of Downland lying 2 miles (3 Km) north-east of Blandford Forum in the Belchalwell is a village in the Civil parish of Okeford Fitzpaine in the Blackmore Vale, North Dorset, and lies two and a half miles south of Saltram House is a George II era mansion located in Plympton, Plymouth, England. Plymouth ( is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England about south west of London.
The London to Portsmouth shutter telegraph chain was replaced by a chain of semaphore stations which was operational from 1822 to 1847. It did not use the same locations as the shutter chain, but followed almost the same route with 15 stations -
Admiralty (London), Chelsea, Putney Heath, Coombe Warren (Kingston upon Thames), Coopers Hill, Chatley Heath, Pewley Hill (Guildford), Bannicle Hill (Godalming), Haste Hill (Haslemere), Holder Hill (Midhurst), Beacon Hill (Harting), Compton Down (Compton), Camp Down (Portsdown Hill), Lumps Fort (Southsea) and Portsmouth Dockyard. Kingston upon Thames is the principal settlement of the Royal Borough Claygate is a large village in the English county of Surrey, approximately south west of London on the edge of the Green Belt. Guildford ( IPA /ˈgɪlfəd/ is the County town of Surrey, England, as well as the seat for the borough of Guildford and the Godalming is a town in the Waverley district of the county of Surrey, England, seven kilometres (four miles south of Guildford. Haslemere is a town in Surrey, England, close to the border with both Hampshire and West Sussex. Midhurst is a Market town and Civil parish in the Chichester district of West Sussex, England The semaphore tower at Chatley Heath, which replaced the Netley Heath station of the shutter telegraph, has been restored by Surrey County Council and is open to the public. Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties.
A semaphore based successor for the London to Plymouth shutter telegraph chain, branching much closer to London, at Chatley Heath in Surrey, was started but abandoned before completion. Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties.
Many of the prominences on which the towers were built are known as 'Telegraph Hill' to this day. As in France the network required lavish amounts of money and manpower to operate and could only be justified as a defence need.
Other countries
Once it had proved its success, the optical telegraph was imitated in many other countries, especially after it was used by Napoleon to coordinate his empire and army. In most of these countries, the postal authorities operated the semaphore lines. A post office is a facility authorized by a Postal system for the posting receipt sorting handling transmission or delivery of Mail.
The Kingdom of Prussia began with a line 750 kilometres long between Berlin and Coblenz in 1833, and in Russia, Tsar Nicolas I inaugurated the line between Moscow and Warsaw (1200 km) in 1833; this needed 220 stations manned by 1320 operators. The Kingdom of Prussia (Königreich Preußen was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918 and from 1871 was the leading state of the German Empire, comprising Berlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. Koblenz (also Coblenz in pre-1926 German Spellings French Coblence) is a city situated on both banks of the Rhine Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending Moscow (Москва́ romanised: Moskvá, IPA: see also other names) is the Capital and the largest city of Warsaw (Warszawa; also known by other names) is the Capital and Largest city of Poland.
In the United States the first optical telegraph was built by Jonathan Grout. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Jonathan Grout ( July 23, 1737 &ndash September 8, 1807) was a United States Representative from Massachusetts for the First United States It was a 104 kilometre line connecting Martha's Vineyard with Boston, and its purpose was to transmit news about shipping. Martha's Vineyard (adjoining the smaller Chappaquiddick Island) is an Island off the US east coast to the south of Cape Cod, both One of the principal hills in San Francisco, California is also named "Telegraph Hill", after the semaphore telegraph which was established there in 1849 to signal the arrival of ships into San Francisco Bay. The City and County of San Francisco is the fourth most populous city Telegraph Hill (elev 275 ft 83 m refers to a small district in San Francisco California. San Francisco Bay is a shallow productive Estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento
The semaphores were successful enough that Samuel Morse failed to sell the electrical telegraph to the French government. Samuel Finley Breese Morse ( April 27, 1791 &ndash April 2, 1872) was an American painter of portraits and historic However, France finally committed to replace semaphores with electric telegraphs in 1846. Note that electric telegraphs are both more private and unaffected by weather. Many contemporaries predicted the failure of electric telegraphs because "they are so easy to cut. " The last stationary semaphore link in regular service was in Sweden, connecting an island with a mainland telegraph line. It went out of service in 1880.
In Ireland, Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1744-1817) proposed a telegraph there when a French invasion was anticipated in 1794, and again in 1796, however the proposal was not implemented. Ireland (pronounced /ˈaɾlənd/ Éire) is the third largest island in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world Richard Lovell Edgeworth (31 May 1744 - 13 June 1817 was an English writer and inventor
References in popular culture
An episode in Hornblower and the Hotspur (one of C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower books) involves the destruction of a Napoleonic semaphore station on the coast of France. Hornblower and the Hotspur (published 1962) is a Horatio Hornblower novel written by C Cecil Scott Forester was the Pen name of Cecil Louis Troughton Smith ( August 27 1899 – April 2, 1966) an English Admiral of the Fleet Horatio Hornblower 1st Baron Hornblower, GCB, is a fictional protagonist of a series of Novels by C This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. This event is filmed in the British TV movie "Loyalty", the seventh episode in the 8-episode series of Hornblower movies
One of Dudley Pope's Lord Ramage books, Ramage's Signal, has Ramage's crew seize a Napoleonic semaphore station to send a signal directing a French convoy into a trap. Dudley Bernard Egerton Pope ( 29 December 1925 - 25 April 1997) was a British Writer of both Nautical fiction Nicholas Lord Ramage was the Fictional character at the centre of a series of Sea novels written by Dudley Pope. The semaphore, however, is depicted as using flapping panels or shutters rather than the arms of the Chappe system.
The Clacks system in Terry Pratchett's Discworld universe is very similar to the Chappe semaphore, and is probably based upon it. The clacks in Terry Pratchett 's Discworld novels is a network of semaphore towers stretching along the Sto Plains, into Terence David John Pratchett, OBE (born 28 April 1948 is an English fantasy, Science fiction, and children's author. Discworld is a comedic Fantasy Book series by the British author Terry Pratchett, set on the Discworld, a flat In the books, the Clacks system takes the place of the real world Internet and telephone network. The Internet is a global system of interconnected Computer networks Basic principle A traditional landline telephone system also known as "plain old telephone service" (POTS, commonly handles both signaling and audio information
In Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo the antihero uses France's optical telegraph system to trick one of his adversaries into going bankrupt. The Count of Monte Cristo ( Le Comte de Monte-Cristo) is an Adventure novel by Alexandre Dumas père.
In Jack Vance's SF novel The Blue World, islands in the ocean communicate with "wink machines", which display binary arrays of panels, possibly derived from the system Chappe decided was less effective. John Holbrook Vance (born August 28, 1916 in San Francisco,
Keith Roberts' Pavane describes an extensive network of semaphores in Britain, operated by a powerful 'Guild of Signalers' who have a monopoly on communication; the second "measure" of the book is the story of the training and experience of a "signaller". Keith Roberts (1935 - 2000 was a British Science fiction author. Pavane by Keith Roberts is an alternate history Science fiction Fix-up novel first published by Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd
Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises references a statue in Paris where "the inventor of the semaphore is engaged in doing same" near the Boulevard Raspail. Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21 1899 — July 2 1961 was an American novelist short-story writer, and Journalist. The Sun Also Rises is the first major Novel by Ernest Hemingway.
The song "The Road Leads Where It's Led" by The Secret Machines from their debut album, Now Here is Nowhere references semaphore. The Secret Machines are a three-piece American rock band. Originally from Dallas Texas before moving to New York City, Now Here is Nowhere is the first full-length album by Dallas rock band The Secret Machines.
See also
- Aldis lamp
- Flag semaphore
- Heliograph
- Railway signalling
- Signal lamp
- Telegraph Hill, for a list of telegraph hills
- Semaphore Flag Signaling System
References
Crowley, David and Heyer, Paul (ed) (2003) 'Chapter 17: The optical telegraph' Communication in History: Technology, Culture and Society (Fourth Edition) Allyn and Bacon, Boston pp. Signal lamp, also called Aldis lamp, is a visual signaling device for Optical communication (typically using Morse code) &ndash essentially a focused lamp Flag semaphore is a system for conveying information at a distance by means of visual signals with hand-held flags rods disks paddles or occasionally bare or gloved hands A Heliograph (from the Greek Helios ( Ἥλιος meaning "sun" and graphein (γραφειν = write is a wireless Railway signalling is a system used to control Railway traffic safely essentially to prevent Trains from colliding. Signal lamp, also called Aldis lamp, is a visual signaling device for Optical communication (typically using Morse code) &ndash essentially a focused lamp A telegraph hill is a hill or other natural elevation chosen as part of an optical telegraph system because of the relatively great distance between it and at least one other A telegraph hill is a hill or other natural elevation chosen as part of an optical telegraph system because of the relatively great distance between it and at least one other In Computer networking, Semaphore Flag Signaling System (SFSS is a humorous proposal to carry Internet Protocol (IP traffic by semaphores. 123-125
- ^ The Origin of the Railway Semaphore
- ^ History of the Telephone part2
- ^ Faster Than The Wind, The Liverpool to Holyhead Telegraph, Frank Large, an avid publication ISBN 0952102099
Further reading
- The Old Telegraphs, Geoffrey Wilson, Phillimore & Co Ltd 1976 ISBN 0900592796
- Faster Than The Wind, The Liverpool to Holyhead Telegraph, Frank Large, an avid publication ISBN 0952102099
External links
- Chappe's semaphore (an illustrated history of optical telegraphy)
- The Royal Signals Org.UK Datasheets
- Webpage including a map of England's telegraph chains
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