CHAPPE, CLAUDE, a French mechanician, who, though not the original inventor of a machine for transmitting intelligence with rapidity between places very distant from each other, must be con sidered as having devised the means of rendering such a machine available for that purpose. He was a nephew of the Abbd Chappo d'Auteroche, and was born at Brulon in Normandy, in 1763. It is said by his French biographers that, happening on some occasion in his youth to be separated from his friends, he conceived the idea of corresponding with them by means of signals ; and that the result of his efforts to obtain this end was the invention of the machine which he called a telegraph (lists and 7pcfitao), or a semaphore (o ea and eplpa,). Whether or• not he had at that time any knowledge of tho discoveries of Dr. Hook iu England, or of Amontons in big own country, both of which were nearly a century earlier, is uncertain, but there appears to be some resemblance between his machine and that which was proposed by the former in his discourse to the Royal Society in 1684. Be that as it may, no doubt can exist that M. Chappe is justly entitled to the honour of having invented both a particular system of signals, and the mechanism by which the operations are performed.
This machine consisted of a vertical pillar of wood fifteen or sixteen feet high, at the top of which was a transverse beam eleven or twelve feet long, which turned on a joint at its centre, and was capable of being plaza(' at any angle with the pillar ; and at each extremity of the bean' was a secondary arm, which also turned on a joint, and could be placed either in the same direction as the beam or at any angle with it, upwards or downwards. The various positions of the beam and secondary arms were to serve as indications of the letters of the alphabet, and of the ten numerals ; the sentence to be transmitted was to be exhibited letter by letter from the first telegraph to the next in the line ; it was to be repeated in the same manner from the second to the third, and so on to the last.
M. Chappe presented his invention to the French Legislative Assem bly in 1792, when the revolution had disposed tbo minds of men for the reception of any novelty which promised to be of national utility; and in the following year the goverment decreed that an experiment should ha made, in presence of certain commissioners, in order to try its efficacy. For this purpose there was formed between Paris and Lisle, at distances from each other equal to three or four leagues, a line of stations, at each of which one of the machines was constructed; and the first, which was immediately under the direction of the Inventor, was placed on the roof of the Louvre. The sentence to be convoyed was received there from the hands of the members com posing the Committee of Publio Safety, and in 13 mioutes 40 seconds it was delivered through all the intermediate stations to that at Lisle, a distance of 48 leagues. The result of the experiment being con sislemel satidactory, the use of the machine became general in France; and It is said that one of the first despatches conveyed in this manner to Pori. announced the re-taking of the town of Conde.
The Important advantages which might be derived from the use of the telegraph were immediately felt. A description of it was brought by an emigrant from Paris to Frankfurt-onalse-)Isine, where two models were executed, which thence were sent to England by Mr. W. Ptsyfair ; and the Invention, with modifications, was adopted in this country.
The claim of IL Clapp° to the honour of being the inventor of this kind of coaching appears to have been disputed by some of his con temporaries...who oleo invidiously represented Its imperfections or ex posed the mistakes which, as they asserted, might be made in using it; and thus circumstances are said to hare so preyed on his mind that be fell into a profound melancholy, which terminated his life In 1805, at the age of forty-two years.