| OCR Text |
Show TijB PEAT of closing 1 5,000 ordinary and 500 Svo pages of official despatches in a small quill, and attaching the latter to the tail feather of a pigeon in such a manner as not to impede the bird's flight, or to incommode it, and not to cause it to disembarrass itself of its precious burden, was accomplished in Paris during the late siege. The result re-sult was not attained by one effort: at first the despatches were written by hand on the thinest paper known, next, the manuscript messages were photographed photo-graphed microscopically on paper; thirdly, the despatches were set up in type first, and then reduced by photography, photo-graphy, which allowed of greater di-minutiop di-minutiop in size and afforded more legibility when enlarged. Lastly, an important improvement waa effected by sending the almost impreceptible message on thin films of collodion. These films were ten times' thinner and lighter than the paper already mentioned, so that a pigeon was enabled to carry an immensely increased budget without aoy additional weight or volume in fact, with a diminution of both. The system was conceived and worked out by M Steinachers, Director-General of Telegraphs, with the aid of MM. Bareswell, Blaise, and Layibllye, who were at Toura. |
