2-913-952 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Electric Telegraph for the Seat of War - Plough for Laying the Wire, 1854. Crimean War. 'The appliances for laying out the wire over irregular ground, and through marshes and rivers, are very ingenious, and the instruments are so thoroughly portable that after being shifted from place to place they can be fixed in working order in a few seconds. For communications by day and night, between distant points, such as the banks of a river, a distant outpost, or battery in intrenchments, between vessels at sea, and especially between the fleet and the shore, this novel auxiliary will doubtless prove of the highest utility. The mode of communication is as follows: The wire is deposited by a subsoil plough in the ground...the wire being coiled round a wheel revolving horizontally, attached to a carriage drawn in advance. The whole apparatus can be worked by the strength of eight men'. From "Illustrated London News", 1854.