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podcasts. It's October 1832 in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Two men aboard a ship bound from France to New York City steal themselves against a wicked storm.

Their fellow passengers are green-faced and heaving that these two men barely noticed the boats climbs and falls.

They're too engrossed in their conversation.

One is a gifted but struggling painter.

The other is a brilliant geologist. Their conversation about Benjamin Franklin and his

experiments with a force called electricity has wound its way around to the current

topic, modern communications technology. The boat takes a massive lurch, and the painter

steadies himself against a mantle, unfazed. A few weeks ago in France, I visited the Semaphore Telegraph system.

Quite an artistic vision indeed, extending into the countryside as far as the eye can see.

And the simplicity of the system is so elegant. In the early 1830s, the Semaphore system is the

fastest, most reliable way to communicate a message over long distances. It consists of a line of

towers that stretches for miles, each visible to the next.

They're topped with a vertical post with hinged horizontal arms extending out that can be manipulated by an operator into different positions.

Each position corresponds to a code in semaphore, a visual language for relaying messages

from one tower to the next. The geologist nods along, familiar

with the system. It's impressive, I give you that, but by design it's only effective in the absence of bad weather.

After all, you've got to actually see to the next tower. If you have to wait on visibility,

...