Chappe+Telegraph

French engineer [|Claude Chappe] began working on visual telegraphy in 1790, using pairs of "clocks" whose hands pointed at different symbols. These did not prove quite viable at long distances, and Chappe revised his model to use two sets of jointed wooden beams. Operators moved the beams using cranks and wires. [|[5]] He built his first [|telegraph line] between [|Lille] and [|Paris], followed by a line from __ [|Strasbourg] __ to Paris. In 1794, a Swedish engineer, [|Abraham Edelcrantz] built a quite different system from [|Stockholm] to [|Drottningholm]. As opposed to Chappe's system which involved pulleys rotating beams of wood, Edelcrantz's system relied only upon shutters and was therefore faster. [|[6]]