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

RONALD'S ELECTROGRAPH. 153
DESCRIPTION OF RONALD'S ELECTROGRAPH.
Besiaes the efforts of Mr. Ronald to establish his electric
telegraph in 1816, and in subsequent years, he invented an
apparatus called an "electrograph."' This instrument has
been construed to be a step in the march of telegraphic invention, and in substantiation of which, it was placed in the
pleadings of a contesting party in one of his telegraph suits in
America.
Fig. 5 represents the new electrograph, a description of
which was published by Mr. Ronald in London, in 1823. He
said:
Whoever has been possessed of a sufficient; share of curiosity
and patience to examine the extraordinary and amusing series
of phenomena which atmospheric electricity exhibits, as observed by Signior Beccaria's exploring wire, or Mr. Bennett's,
Mr. Cavallo's, and Mr. Read's apparatus, &c., must have regretted the impossibility of noting down sometimes the very
rapid changes in tension, as well as in kind of electricity, which
occur in a thunder-storm, or hard shower of rain, hail, snow,
&c., in such manner as to convey a correct idea of the different
very short intervals of time in which they occur, as well as of
the extraordinary phenomena themselves. Hence, perhaps,
arose the idea of employing an electrograph, a far more necessairy instrument than the barometrograph, &c., &c. The phenomena displayed by the electricity of serene weather, and of
dew, are not, however, less interesting, or less deserving attention, and they equally require an instrument to note them, but
for the opposite reason, viz., their tediousness. Fig. 5 is an
electrograph, which may be applied to either purpose.
A A is a box, containing a strong timepiece, placed in a horizontal position, and receiving motion from the weight B.; c is
a circular plate of baked mahogany wood, eight inches in diameter, having a perforation, D, of two inches and a half diameter.
The circumference of this plate, and that also of the perforation, are provided with edges, or rims, and the outer broad rim
is divided off, and marked with hours and minutes, in the manner of a common clock. The space between the two edges is
nearly filled with cement, composed of resin, bees' wax, and
lamp-black, and this part of the apparatus can be detached at
will from the box. E F is a glass tube, furnished with brass
caps (and covered both inside and out with hard cement), the
lower end of which screws upon the dial-plate of the timepiece,
and the upper end carries a small cylinder or sheave, g'. Within
this tube, E F, a stem of glass is nfxed by its lower end on the