The telegraph manual: a complete history and description of the semaphoric, electric and magnetic telegraphs of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, ancient and modern.

492 TELEGRAPH ELECTRIC CIRCUITS.
THE STAGER COMPOUND CIRCUITS.
On the extension of the lines, their continual use becoming
necessary for commercial purposes, the working of the lines
with open circuits, according to the plan adopted by Mr. Vail,
was found impracticable for successful telegraphing.
The plan was then adopted, to keep the circuits always
closed, and the battery current continuously on the line wires.
This occasioned the necessity of placing upon each wire a battery, each independent of the other. It was maintained at a
very great expense, but there seemed to be no law known by
which it could be avoided.
For several years the lines throughout America thus worked.
Various plans were tried to economize in the battery organization, but without success. The most skilled experts had their
attention directed to the subject, and it fell to the lot of Mr.
Anson Stager, of the Cincinnati station, to devise a plan by
which might be successfully operated any number of lines
from the same battery. This discovery made by Mr. Stager,
in December, 1850, gave additional evidence of the very superior
skill which had before and since characterized his telegraphic
career. Mr. Stager thus explains his plan of operating a series
of lines by the same battery.
Fig. 8.. -V- -- -V
The improvement consists in working a " multiplicity of
main circuits with a single main battery, instead of a battery
to each circuit, as was practised previous to this discovery." It
is described as follows:
B, is a main battery, w, w~, large wires leading from the
poles of the battery; E, the earth-plate;., L, L, L, four main
lines branching from the large wire of the battery at w', and
extending to the several terminal stations, each finally connect