Excerpt from The American Fire-Alarm Telegraph: A Lecture Delivered Before the Smithsonian Institution, March, 1855 The common telegraph is linear - it is a line of tele graph. The municipal telegraph is the application of the telegraph to a surface, making it cover a space with telegraphic nerves and papillae as thickly as required, to furnish a com plete organization. The common telegraph connects distant points, as its very name implies, the more distant the better to illustrate its character. The municipal telegraph contem plates the linking together of a multitude of near points, the nearer the better to illustrate the peculiarity of the system. The common telegraph connects two independent centres of life and activity. The municipal telegraph connects a multi tude of subordinate points with one centre, and makes the position of those points dependent upon the centre and the needs of the system. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.