reason for it I cannot assign,—­did not pretend to investigate; but the fact I had ascertained:  x, y, z, so touched, squirm, contract, and expand their articulations, and exude from their pores a certain slimy sweat, of agony it may be,—­anyhow, a slimy exudation comes from them, —­and, simultaneously, and just as much in kind, degree, quality, everything, snails a, b, c repeat the process.  Such is the law, constant as gravitation.  Consequently, all that the operator has to concern himself about is, to understand that so many touches, with fluid of such intensity, to so many snails, and repeated so often, produce such and such an effect upon them, as, collectively considered, to convey, through a, b, c, a certain piece of information.  Knowing this, skill in manipulation and accurate memory are all the qualities he requires to conjoin to such knowledge.  But the observer has a much more delicate office to perform, and, until I invented my recording apparatus, the functions of this post could be discharged only roughly and imperfectly, so evanescent and complex the manifestations.  But I discovered a chemical observer, employing tests that nothing could escape, nor anything deceive.  The clock that indicates the hour for receipt of news puts in motion the filaments of certain delicate machinery connected with the boxes wherein are a, b, c.  These snails are placed upon a gauze-like substance, which, though firm enough to support them undisturbed, permits both their natural excretions, and their exudations under excitement, to filter through readily.  As soon as the hour comes, the machinery moves, and there begins to pass the recording paper, so to speak, which I invented,—­a paper not meant to receive any vulgar mechanical impression, but one which, to the instructed eye, and by the aid of the microscope, sets forth in plain language the nature of the functional disturbance in each snail, its quality, its intensity, and its duration.  I do not exaggerate, Monsieur.  This paper, in a word, is chemically prepared, saturated in a substance that renders it perfectly sympathetic to whatever fluid exudes from the snail, and thus, and by means of its motion, it records the quantity and quality of the impression with unvarying accuracy.  The observing hour over, the clock-work stops, the paper is examined, and the result recorded carefully. Par exemple: I touch snail x, once, twice, three times, with the weak solution, No. 1; John Meavy, receiving this fact, through the sympathetic report of snail a, the chemical paper, and the microscope, reads, as plainly as if it had been printed in pica type:  ‘Flour declined threepence.’  If the fluid used is stronger, the touches more numerous, and bestowed upon y and z also,—­then the decline or advance is proportionately great.  Is it not a grandly simple thing, this telegraph of mine, Monsieur?”