J. J. Speed

Telegraph Improvement.. — Mr. Speed has invented a "Switch," as he calls it, which consists, Mr. S. says, in making one galvanic circuit break and close a second circuit both ways, the second circuit a third, and so on for an unlimited distance, the operator at the extreme end being able to break and close the different circuits, and consequently write on all the Registers connected with the through wire without the attention of any one at those stations not receiving the message. He adds:

"Lines of Telegraph cannot be worked advantageously, even with my new insulators, for more than four or five hundred miles in one circuit. To work a line for eight or ten hundred miles in one circuit would require so powerful a battery and one of such high intensity that much of the electric current would be lost in consequence of imperfect insulation — our best conductors being merely very poor conductors. — My improvement will enable us to divide the lines into such circuits as can be worked with certainty in bad weather and still send a message from St. Louis or New York without re-writing.