CLAUDE

See also:

• CLAUDE CHAPPE (1763–18o5)

CHAPPE (1763–18o5)  , French engineer, was born at Brulon (Sarthe) in 1763 . He was the inventor of an optical telegraph which was widely used in France until it was superseded by the electric telegraph . His device consisted of an upright post, on the top of which was fastened 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 intervals such 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-telegraphe; but the originality of his invention was so much questioned that he was seized with melancholia and (it is said) committed suicide at Paris in 18o5 . His elder brother, Ignace Urbain Jean Chappe (1760–1829), took part in the invention of the telegraph, and with a younger brother, Pierre Francois, from 18o5 to 1823 was administrator of the telegraphs, a post which was also held by two other brothers, Rene and Abraham, from 1823 to 1830 . Ignace was the author of a Histoire de la telegraphie (1824) . An uncle, Jean Chappe d'Auteroche (1728–1769), was an astronomer who observed two transits of Venus, one in Siberia in 1761, and the other in 1769 in California, where he died .