PHOTO-MICROGRAPHY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 November 1941, Page 6

PHOTO-MICROGRAPHY

USED IN FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR. Now that the 8.8. C. has released the information that photo-micrography was used in the Franco-Prussian, War there can be no objection, says a British exchange, to giving the public a few details of how it was employed. The messages were reduction of ordinary print and were printed on slips of paper measuring four centimetres by three. Each contained four columns, the first of which bore the following direction:— “Service des depeches par pigeons voyageurs. Steenackers a Mercadier, 103, rue de Grenelle.” The other columns were printed on both sides of the paper with the messages, and inserted into a light tube which was fastened by three threads to the tail feathers of the pigeon. The pigeons had pleasant-sounding names such as Gladiateur, Vermouth, and Fille-de-l’Air and were sent out from Paris in balloons. On their return the pigeons received a great welcome and were treated to their full share of the scanty food supplies of the city. Their exploits were celebrated in verse and prose. Theodore de Banville devotes ' one of his. “Idylles Prussiennes” to the story of a pigeon which fell into the enemy hands and returned bearing a forged message which did not deceive the citizens for long. Paul de SaintVictor in a rhetorical piece of prose pleaded that they should be regarded as sacred birds and called them the doves of a new Ark surrounded by seas . of blood and flame, and compared the ; line of their flight to a rainbow fore-ij telling the end of the storm, ;