News and Miscellany

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 21, 1871

News and Miscellany.

“Can ye not discern the signs of the times?”

How the London “Times” was sent to Paris.

The long columns of announcements in the London Times, intended for friends in Paris have been a frequent subject of remark, and people have wondered what chance there was of their ever reaching the eyes for which they were meant. The means adopted for this purpose are explained in the Times of January 30th:

“Those pages of the paper which contained communications to relatives in Paris were photographed with great care by the London Stereoscopic and Photographic Company on pieces of thin and almost transparent paper, about an inch and a half in length by an inch in width. On these impressions there could be seen by the naked eye only two legible words, the Times, and six narrow brown bands representing the six columns of printed matter forming a page of the newspaper. Under the microscope, however, the brown spaces became legible, and every line of the newspaper was found to have been distinctly copied, and with the greatest clearness. The photographs were sent to Bordeaux for transmission, thence by carrier-pigeon to Paris. When received there, they were magnified by the aid of a magic-lantern to a large size and thrown upon a screen. A staff of clerks immediately transcribed the messages and sent them off to the places indicated by the advertisers.”