3-009-045 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The International Exhibition: Ward's night-signal telegraph, 1862. '...an ingenious system of marine telegraph, consisting of flags for day and lights at night...The flags are composed of three colours that embrace strong contrasts with each other...These flags are twenty-seven in number, and furnish a representative for each letter of the alphabet...Their division of colour is such as to make them distinguishable at any seen distance...and applicable to any codebook in use, of whatever language, government, or nation, or useful in themselves without the aid of any code...The lights telegraphic arrangement is complete for holding continuous communications of any length, on any subject, over a sea range for miles around, with equal correctness and facility as by the electric on land, and practical for dispatching the international news between Europe and America...By using another lantern one hundred and sixty additional changes can be effected, and by adding a sixth the number may be again increased by three hundred and eighty-four, making the aggregate six hundred and thirty-six separate distinct signals...In our Engraving of Ward's night-signal alphabet the blank spots indicate white lights, and the sectioned ones red lights'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.