A snail-powered telegraph is demonstrated in France - October 2nd, 1851

On this day in 1851, a French occultist named Jacques Benoît gave the first -- and last -- demonstration of his new invention: a snail-powered telegraph.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class,
a show that shines the spotlight on the big and
bizarre moments of history. I'm Gave b. Louzier, and today

(00:20):
we're talking about the Black Sheep of the telecommunications family,
a device that supposedly sent messages using the telepathic power
of snails. The day was October two, eighteen fifty one.

(00:43):
A French occultist named Jacques Benois gave the first and
last demonstration of his new invention, a snail powered telegraph.
To be clear, though, the machine wasn't powered by the
physical activity of snails, but by the psychic abilities they
supposedly possessed. Little is known about Jacques Benois, the man

(01:07):
behind the machine, but it's clear that he was an
admirer of the so called secret sciences such as astrology
and mesmerism. Like many others in the eighteen hundreds, he
was fascinated by the paranormal and by the potential intersection
between science and magic. This was an arrow when even

(01:28):
respected members of society began to hold seances and attend
shows where human mummies were unwrapped on stage, but ben
Wat didn't stop it just being a fan or scholar
of occultism. As an adult, he decided to put his
knowledge to practical use as an inventor. Ben Wah's studies

(01:49):
led him to snails, which he believed to have a
strange evolutionary ability. He believed that when two snails made it,
their exchange of fluids forged a telep hathic bond that
connected them across any distance. So if you poked one snail,
it's mate would flinch as if it had also been touched.

(02:10):
It may sound supernatural, but in ben Wah's mind, this
kind of sympathetic action at a distance was no different
than that of electricity or magnetism, And if those forces
could be harnessed for use in telecommunications, as they had
been in the recent invention of the telegraph, then maybe
the animal magnetism between snails could serve the same purpose.

(02:35):
To test this questionable theory, ben wa allegedly partnered with
an American inventor. I say allegedly because no one else
involved in this story ever met or communicated with ben
Law's American partner. Some historians believe ben lab made him
up entirely as a way to make his own idea

(02:57):
seem more legitimate to investors. Whatever the truth, ben Wa
claimed that he and his partner had devised a new
kind of telegraph that would use the psychic link between
twenty four pairs of mated snails, so forty eight snails total,
to send messages from one side of the world to

(03:18):
the other. If true, the invention would outclass the traditional
telegraph by a wide margin. Whereas electric telegraphs were restricted
by oceans and atmospheric changes, the psychic snail telegraph would
work across any distance. Clearly, they had big ideas, but

(03:38):
neither ben Laugh nor his possibly imaginary partner had the
money needed to carry out their experiments. However, ben Law
was able to smooth talk a wealthy Parisian named Monsieur
Triat into funding the endeavor. Ben Wa claimed that he
had already used an early version of the device to

(04:00):
communicate with his partner overseas, a claim that would never
be verified, but Triott was intrigued. Not only did he
supply Benoit with the materials needed to build a snail telegraph,
he also provided him with lodging and an allowance while
he worked on the machine. Speaking of which by now

(04:21):
you're probably wondering how it worked, or at least how
it was supposed to work. The final build consisted of
two matching sets of twenty four snails each, which were
glued to circular wooden boards alongside the letters of the
French alphabet. The idea was that if you pressed one
snail on a board, that snails mate on the other

(04:44):
board would stick out its tentacles in response. The device,
like a regular set of telegraphs, required an operator on
each end, the person sending the message who would carefully
press the snails to spell it out, and the purse
and receiving the message, who would monitor the snails movements
to see which letters had been pressed. Ben Wah's invention

(05:08):
was meant to require just a few dozen snails, a
bit of lumber, and some hardware, but the device gradually
ballooned in both complexity and cost. After months of frustration
and with the project well over budget, Monsieur Triatt demanded
a demonstration to see just where his money had been going.

(05:30):
Ben wa not only agreed to this, he even invited
a journalist named Jules A. Leaks to witness the demonstration
and write about it in the local paper. As you've
probably guessed, the inventions big debut was not what you'd
call successful. Ben Wa had hired assistance to man the
snails at the twin boards so that he couldn't be

(05:52):
accused of rigging the test. However, the circular boards or
compasses were set up in the aim room and ben
Wa refused to even hang a curtain between them. Then,
when the trial began, he continuously went back and forth
between the two boards to make sure his assistance were

(06:13):
pressing and reading the snails correctly. Despite these rather blatant
attempts at cheating, the messages still wound up garbled and
full of misspellings. Needless to say, Triatt was unimpressed and
demanded that he'd be given a second, more rigorous demonstration.
Ben Wa agreed once again, but when the day of

(06:35):
the second test arrived, he never showed up. He never
contacted Treat again, and died penniless just one year later.
So what was ben Wah's deal? Did he really believe
in the snail telegraph, as his occultists roots might suggest,
or was he just a con man with a weird

(06:55):
thing for snails? The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
But as far as the journalist who witnessed the test
was concerned, Ben Wat and his snail telegraph were a
genuine glimpse of the future. Two weeks after the messy
demonstration on October two, and before Ben Lah had vanished
without a trace, Jules Eleaks reported the experiment a success

(07:20):
and speculated that snail telegraphs would soon be used to
send quote electrical newspapers an electrical mail across the world
and the blink of an eye. Not only did a
Leak's account for shadow things like email, the Internet, and texting,
he even predicted our fascination with ever shrinking technologies. Ben

(07:42):
Wah's first models were over six ft tall, but A.
Leaks assured readers that people would soon carry personal snail
telegraphs that were no larger than a pocket watch. Entirely
possible because, as he pointed out, there are some species
of snail as small as a pinhead. I don't need
to tell you that none of this ended up happening,

(08:05):
but it's fun to imagine the infrastructure needed for the
kind of world that A. Leaks and Ben Law imagined.
Snails can live as long as fifteen years in captivity
but users would still need to replace them eventually, not
to mention, feed and clean up after them for all
the time in between. And then there's the mating to consider.

(08:27):
Anyone you wanted to communicate with would need to have
a set of snails that had already copulated with your own.
Presumably there would be a vast network of facilities devoted
to mating snails, keeping track of their various partners and
shipping them to users around the world. And actually, you
know what, on second thought, maybe it's not so fun

(08:49):
to imagine. I'm Gave Louzier and hopefully you now know
a little more about history today than you did yesterday.
If you enjoyed the show, consider following us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at t d I HC Show And if
you have any comments or suggestions, you can gather fifty

(09:10):
two mated snails, send half of them to me, and
then poke out your message at exactly one pm Eastern
time next Tuesday, when I'll be watching the movements of
my receiver snails. Or if you prefer, you can also
send the show an email at this day at I
heeart media dot com. Thanks as always to channel or

(09:32):
Mays for producing the show and thank you for listening.
I'll see you back here again tomorrow for another day
in history class. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

(09:53):
listen to your favorite shows.