The Snail Telegraph

[igenlode]

I'm not sure what's going on, but my Internet access in general seems to be degraded this morning, probably due to rain in the wires -- I hope this will post, as a lot of pages are showing up either with their images missing, their CSS absent, or simply blank ("Error: no document source").

Here at any rate is one of the more bizarre discoveries I made while researching beliefs in Animal Magnetism circa 1840-50: the Snail Telegraph.

It has lately been stated, by M. Allix, on the authority of M. Benoit in Paris, and of another discoverer, (also, I believe, a Frenchman, who is now in America,) both of whom, during the last ten years, have been employed in working out the discovery, which they had severally and independently made, although they are now associated to work it out, that this magnetic sympathy is remarkably developed in snails; that these animals, after having once been in communication or in contact, continue ever after to sympathise, no matter at what distance they may be. And it has been proposed to found, on this fact, a mode of communication between the most distant places. Nay, M. Allix describes, with care and judgment, experiments made in his presence, in which, the time having of course been fixed beforehand, words, spelling in Paris by M. Benoit, and also by M. Allix himself, were instantly read in America, and as instantly replied to, by words spelled there, and read in Paris. All this was done by means of snails, and although the full details of the apparatus employed, and of all the processes necessary to ensure success, have not yet been published, yet the account given by M. Allix, and also by M. Benoit, goes so far as to enable us to conceive the principle made use of.

It would appear that every letter has a snail belonging to it in Paris, while in America, each letter has also a snail, sympathetic with that of the same letter in Paris, the two snails of each letter having been at some period, and by some process, brought into full sympathy, and then separated and marked. There is, of course, a stock of spare snails for each letter, in case of accident, but it is found that these animals will live for a year without food, should that be necessary. When a word is to be spelled in Paris, the snail belonging to the first letter is brought by some galvanic apparatus, not yet fully described, into a state of disturbance, with which his fellow in America sympathises. But this requires to be ascertained; which is done by approaching, in America, to all the snails successively, a testing apparatus, not described, which however includes a snail. On the approach of this, the snail whose fellow in Paris has been acted on, exhibits some symptom, which is not exhibited by any other, and the corresponding letter is noted down. This is done with each letter, and thus the word is finally spelled.

[....] It will certainly be very remarkable, if a snail telegraph should come into action, which, in spite of the proverbial slowness of the animal concerned, should rival in rapidity the electric telegraph, and surpass it in security, inasmuch as there are no wires to be cut by an enemy, besides being infinitely less costly, since no solid, tangible means of communication are required, and all that is needed is the apparatus at either end of the line, and the properly prepared snails.

"Letters to a Candid Inquirer, on Animal Magnetism" (1851), pp197-199, by William Gregory, Professor of Chemistry in the University of Edinburgh.

An online search further produced:

• "The Pasilalinic Sympathetic Compass" by Jules Allix (tr. Justin Smith)
  
• Progress at snail's pace, Toby Howard 1995
  

Comments

[igenlode]

That makes sense -- people are much more focussed on developing a theory to encompass exciting results than on the possibility that it might simply be a question of recording error, let alone deliberate fraud...