A History of Electric Telegraphy, to the Year 1837

Unfortunately for us, at least from a book-selling point of View, our old taste for archaeology, after lying dormant for years, reasserted itself, and, about six years ago, we found ourselves in the design of writing a history of telegraphy from the time of Adam down to our own! For this we had a pile of notes and paper cuttings — the accumulation of a dozen years, but few books (books are heavy and awkward baggage for one of our necessarily semi-nomadic life). How ever, with our materials we built up a tolerably fleshy skeleton (if we may so speak), which, on our arrival in England at the close of 1882, after nearly fifteen years' absence, we showed to some friends.