Pioneers of Electrical Communication

Abstract

THERE can be little doubt that electrical communication has done much to promote international peace. It promotes a better mutual understanding between different races and prevents false rumours from spreading and warping the judgment of nations. As a help to international commerce it is of the greatest value. The manufacture of the necessary electrical apparatus and operating the communication lines provides work for hundreds of thousands of skilled workmen and engineers all over the world. Yet it was only in June 1837 that Cooke and Wheatstone patented the first primitive electric telegraph. That so little attention has been devoted to the lives of the pioneers who perfected the art is at first sight surprising. But when we remember how rapidly epoch-making developments have succeeded one another we see how the attention of young engineers has been attracted to the present and the future rather than to the past.

Pioneers of Electrical Communication.

By Rollo Appleyard. Pp. ix + 347. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1930.) 2ls. net.