THE HELIOGRAPH.

Marlborough Daily Times, Volume II, Issue 142, 30 July 1880, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE HELIOGRAPH.

Wo have to thank the heliograph again for an important message received from General Stewart, and announcing the result of an attack on our troops, in which the enemy seems to have suffered severely. The message is dated Camp Ghuzni, April 22, and was received at the India Oliice the following da) r , pretty good proof of the efficient manner in which the signalling arrangements are carried out. Jt is very probable that the news could not have been brought so speedily by electric telegraph. The laying of a telegraph wire, supposing materials to have been carried by Gen. Stewart sufficient for a long line of communication, would have taken time and have necessitated, moreover, the establishment of military posts on the route at frequent intervals to protect the system, difficulties that in such a country as Afghanistan would have been well-nigh insurmountable. The heliograph on the other hand does not require the route to be kept open. The line of communication cannot be cut, for the simple reason that the signalling takes place over the heads of the enemy, and the stations required are but few and far between. A 10-inch mirror, and this is the diameter of the ordinary field heliograph, is capable of reflecting the sun’s rays m the form of a bright spot, or flare, to a distance of fifty miles, the signal at this interval being recognisable without the aid of a glass. That is to say, two trained sappers, each provided with a mirror, can readily speak to one another, supposing the sun is shining, With ail internal of fifty miles between them, provided their stations are sufficiently high and no rising ground intervenes to stop the rays. The adjustment of the military heliograph is a very simple matter. An army leaves its base where a heliograph station is located, and after travelling some miles desires to communicate with the stay-at-hoines. A hill in the locality is chosen, and a sap;«cr asconds with his heliograph, which is simply a stand bearing a mirror, swung like the ordinary toilet looking-glass, cxcopt that besides swinging horizontally it is pivoted S 3 as to move vertically as well. Behind the mirror, in the very centre, a little of the quicksilver has been removad, so that the sapper can go behind his instrument and look through a tiny hole in it towards the station he desiaes to sigual. Having sighted the station by adjutting the mirror, he next proceeds to set up in front of the heliograph a rod, and upon this rod is a movable stud. This stud is manipulated like the foresight of a rifle, and the sapper again, standing behind his instrument, directs the adjustment of this scud until the hole in the mirror, the stud, and the distant station are in a line. The heliograph is then ready to work, and in order to fiash signals so that they may beseeu at a distance the sapper has only to take care that his mirror reflects the sunshine on the stud just in front of him. He may then be quite sure that his distant brothers can see them too.—* Daily Hews.’

One of the members of the Bar in Saratogo who thoroughly enjoys a good joke, relates the following, and applies the moral to himself :—Not long since he was counsel in a case before Judge Pratt, referee, and during the progress of the trial became a little bit noisy, as he sometimes does, when the Judge looked up and said to him : ‘ Mr. did you ever hear of the man who wa3 lost in the woods during a thunderstorm?’ On being answered in the negative, the Judge continued : ‘ A man, in attempting to pass through a piece of woods, lost his way, and while he was in that predicament a fearful thunderstorm came up. The woods grew fearfully (lark. The roariug of tlie wind and the crashing of the thunder was terrific. The man was frightened, and started to pray, 1 but, not being used to that business, said, ‘ O Lord, give us a little more light and a little less noise.’ I don’t mean you. Mr. ,” added the Judge. The counsel says that the audience supposed all the time the Judge did mean him, and now that he thinks of it himself he inclines to that j opinion also,