The construction of those in France differs from ours in consisting
of one principal pole, and two arms, moveable at the ends. There are
four in Paris; one, on the _Louvre_, which corresponds with Lille;
another, on the _Place de la Concorde_, with Brest; a third, on one
of the towers of the church of _St. Sulpice_, with Strasburg; and the
fourth, on the other tower of the said church, which is meant to
extend to Nice, but is as yet carried no farther than Dijon. To and
from Lille, which is 120 leagues distant from Paris, intelligence is
conveyed and received in six minutes, three for the question, and
three for the answer.
Yet, however expeditious this intercourse may seem, it is certain
that the telegraphic language may be abridged, by preserving these
machines in their present state, but at the same time allotting to
each of the signs a greater portion of idea, without introducing any
thing vague into the signification.
Independently of the public curiosities, which I have described,
Paris contains several