CHAPPE, CLAUDE (1763-1805), French engineer, was born at Brulon (Sarthe) in 1763. With his brother, Ignace (1760 1829), he was the inventor of an optical telegraph widely used in France until it was superseded by the electric telegraph. His de vice consisted of an upright post, on the top of which was fas tened a transverse bar, while at the ends of the latter two smaller arms moved on pivots. The position of these bars represented words or letters; and by means of machines placed at such inter vals that each was distinctly visible from the next, messages could be conveyed through 5o leagues in a quarter of an hour. The machine was adopted by the Legislative Assembly in 1792, and in the following year Chappe was appointed ingenieur-tele graphe; but the originality of his invention was so much ques tioned that he was seized with melancholia and (it is said) com mitted suicide at Paris, on Jan. 23, 1805.