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Subject: Dead Media Working Note 05.7
Dead Medium: The Heliograph
From: bruces_AT_well.com (Bruce Sterling)
Source: The Telegraph: A History of Morse's Invention
and its Predecessors in the United States by Lewis Coe
TK 5115 C54 1993 McFarland and Company, Publishers
ISBN 0-89950-736-0
"In 1877, Chief Signal Officer Albert J. Meyer of the
U. S. Army obtained some heliograph instruments from the
British for experimental purposes. Meyer sent the
instruments to Gen. Nelson A. Miles, who was assuming
command of the Yellowstone Department in Montana. Miles
became an enthusiastic users of the heliograph. When he
was transferred to Arizona in 1886 to take command of the
Apache Indian campaign, he saw it as the ideal place for
heliograph operations. There were few roads and telegraph
lines, and widely separated army commands were often at a
disadvantage through lack of communications. Miles
established a heliograph communications network throughout
a large part of Arizona and New Mexico, taking advantage
of strategically located mountain peaks for relay
stations.
"The annual report of the secretary of war for the
year 1895 contains the chief signal officer's report on
the Glassford expedition that established the world's
heliograph distance record. It reads as follows:
"'In developing the more important electrical
communication devices of the Signal Corps, other methods
of signalling that are absolutely essential adjuncts have
received due attention. Heliography is perhaps the most
important of these methods to a rapidly moving army,
operating over a country where the use of electrical
instruments is inadvisable or temporarily impracticable.
'The former world's record for long range
heliographing was surpassed 58 miles during the year
though the zealous and intelligent exertions of Capt. W.
A. Glassford, Signal Corps, and a detachment of signal
sergeants by the interoperation of stations on Mount
Ellen, Utah, and Mount Uncompahgre, Colorado, 183 miles
apart. This unprecedented feat of long distance
intercommunication by visual signals was made on Sept 17,
1894, with Signal Corps heliographs carrying mirrors only
8 inches square. It was accomplished only after much
discomfort and some suffering, due to severe storms om the
mountains and to the rarefied air to which the parties
were subjected for ten days. The persistence, skill and
ingenuity of Captain Glassford and of the signal sergeants
engaged in this result are highly commendable.'
(...) "Remnants of some of the old heliograph stations
are still found on the mountaintops today. At Fort Bowie,
Arizona, ceremonial demonstrations of the heliograph are
sometimes staged on Bowie Peak, an important relay point
during the Indian campaign. The American army at first
used the Mance pattern instruments from England. Later
the United States had its own version that employed a leaf
shutter to interrupt the light beam for keying instead of
the mirror-tilting method used by Mance. The heliograph
was used in the Spanish-American war in 1898. By the time
of World War 1, wireless and field telephones had pretty
well taken over the army's communications, but heliograph
instruments were kept on hand until the mid 1920s. Some
were kept at Corregidor in the Philippines for backup
communication with the mainland in case of radio failure.
"The last great use of the heliograph was during the
Boer War in South Africa, where both sides used it. The
terrain and climate, as well as the nature of the
campaign, made the heliograph the logical choice. For
night communications, the British used some naval
searchlights, brought inland on railroad cars, and
equipped with leaf-type shutters for keying the beam of
light into dots and dashes. In the early stages of the
war, the British garrisons were besieged in Kimberly,
Ladysmith, and Mafeking. With land telegraph lines cut
off, the only contact with the outside world was via
light-beam communication, helio by day, searchlight at
night.
"In an effort to improve communications, five Marconi
'mobile wireless units' were sent out from England.
Unfortunately, with wireless still in its infancy, these
units were of little value. In the siege of Ladysmith,
telegraph lines were cut off on November 2, 1899, and from
then until the relieving army arrived on February 28,
1900, the heliograph was the only connecting link with the
outside world. Cloudy days were tedious for the
inhabitants of Ladysmith because no news could be
received. One person recorded such a day in his diary,
writing, 'Heavy weather had settled upon us and had
blinded the little winking reflector on Monte Cristo
Hill.'
"As the relieving army, commanded by Sir Redvers
Buller, approached the city, his signal officer, Capt John
Cayzer, attempted to establish communication by helio.
There were problems with Boer operators who intercepted
the British flashes. When Cayzer finally reached a
station claiming to be British, he devised a test. 'Find
Captain Brooks of the Gordons,' he signalled. 'Ask him
the name of Captain Cayzer's country place in Scotland.'
Captain Brooks, when found, did not immediately grasp the
purpose of the question and remarked, 'Well, I always
thought Cayzer was an ass, but I didn't think he'd forget
the name of his own home!'
"Canada was the last major army to keep the
heliograph as an issue item. By the time the mirror
instruments were retired in 1941, they were not much used
for signalling. Still, the army hated to see them go.
One officer said, 'They made damn fine shaving mirrors!'"
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