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

6 PREFACE.
my visits to them respectively, and for the documents from
time to time transmitted, I have been placed under lasting
obligations. To M. Chauvin, director-general of the Royal
Prussian Telegraphs, I have to express my sincere thanks for
recent valuable documents; though their reception was too late
for the present edition, they will serve a good end in the
future.
It is my purpose to continue this work by subsequent
editions, and embrace the improvements continually making
in the art of telegraphing. Should the reader find any errors
in this volume of either omission or commission, he will serve a
good end by informing me of the fact. It is very desirable to
promulgate truths well sustained by practical demonstrations;
and if there be anything in this volume otherwise, it is for the
weal of the enterprise that the false doctrines should be at the
earliest moment suppressed.
In conclusion, 1 would add, that I have been compelled to
write this volume piecemeal, on the steamboat, on the railway,
at various hotels, and at places thousands of miles apart. All
this I have had to do within the past six months. And while,
in obedience to other duties, it has not been possible for me to
give that personal attention to its passage through the press I
should have wished, the novel and technical character of its
contents rendered more difficult the labors of the correctors
of the press, to whose care it was necessarily left.
With these explanations, I submit the " Telegraph Manual"
to the generous and impartial consideration of the telegraphers
throughout the world.
TAL. P. SHAFFNER.
NEW-YORK, July, 1859.