THE EVOLUTION OF THE FIRE ALARM TELEGRAPH.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE FIRE ALARM TELEGRAPH.

像所有的消防保护政治组织us, the fire alarm telegraph or signaling system has been evolved from the most primitive materials—sometimes from the primal element of fire itself, the light from which served to tell of the incipient conflagration. Not unfrequently, when circumstances admitted of it the human voice acted as the alarming agent; at other times men would run down the streets pounding with sticks on the doors of the the townsmen or villagers, or rattling at their windows till the sleepy firemen were aroused from their slumbers. Church bells and town bells were pressed into the service, and, as is still the case in Europe, Asia, and some parts of this continent and South America, the watchman stood night and day on the top either of some high building or some hill or some tower specially built for the purpose, as in Constantinople today,or as was the case at Augusta,Ga.,or Mt. Morris Park in this city, from which the watcher caught sight of the first smoke or flame, arid gave the alarm either by word of mouth or by the ringing of a bell. And these methods, although they led not only to constant mistakes but also to much loss of time just at the moment when every second counted, continued till about forty-five years ago, when the more common use of the as yet not perfected system of electric telegraphy set men thinking whether or not electricity could be applied for fire alarm purposes. The first attempts were crude enough, and consisted chiefly of what now-a-days would be looked upon as mere rudimentary connections by electric wire with some public bell in church tower, or city hall or fire station—even yet in some fairly progressive towns and village.* of this country, such primitive systems of fire alarm are still in vogue.

这是必要的，应该由应该更可靠和更有效的东西取代此类方法。正如预期的那样，是美国人首先发展了新系统。莫尔斯（Morse）教授早在183美元​​就一直在试验电报，他的发现的结果是马萨诸塞州波士顿的W. F. Channing博士的结果，他为自己制定了一项计划，以制定一项计划用于火灾警报的系统，在i845中，首先在该城市的广告商的列中闻名了他的计划。然而，直到1851年，波士顿市议会甚至通过实验进行了此事。在那一年，它拨出了10,000美元的款项，以测试Channing博士的发明的优点，该发明的优点包含了许多盒子站的设置，这些盒子站与中央办公室相连。从这个中心，从偏远盒子​​中收到的所有信号都通过其他电路将其连接到了与它们相连的各种公共铃铛。通过这种方式，在城市或城镇的每个公共警报钟中，电动机制都会击中盒子信号。