Powerful as this extraordinary agent has become, and incalculably useful as
its operation is now found to be, it would appear that the principle of the
electric telegraph and its _modus operandi_, almost identically as at
present, were known and described upwards of a century ago. On the occasion
of a late visit to Robert Baird, Esq., of Auchmeddan, at his residence,
Cadder House, near Glasgow, my attention was called by that gentleman to a
letter initialed C. M., dated Renfrew, Feb. 15, 1753, and published that
year in the _Scots Magazine_, vol. xv. p. 73., where the writer not only
suggests electricity as a medium for conveying messages and signals, but
details with singular minuteness the method of opening and maintaining
lingual communication between remote points, a method which, with only few
improvements, has now been so eminently successful. It is usual to
attribute this wonderful discovery to the united labours of Mr. W. F. Cooke
and Professor Wheatstone, but has any one acknowledged the contribution of
C. M., and can any of the learned correspondents of "N. & Q." inform me who
he was?