“The photographic reproduction of messages “The first pigeons each carried a single despatch which was tightly rolled and tied with a thread, and then attached to a tail feather of the pigeon, care being taken to avoid old feathers which the bird might lose when in molt. From 19th October, the despatch was protected by being inserted in the quill of a goose or crow, and it was the quill which was attached to the tail feather. Although a pigeon could have carried more, the maximum weight it was asked to carry was about 1 gm, and, as the service developed, the aim was to get the greatest possible number of messages inside this weight. Initially, the messages were written out by hand in small characters on very thin paper
“A great step forward was taken in early October from the idea of Barreswil (or Barreswill) a chemist of Tours who had been the co-author in 1854 with Davanne of La chimie photographique. He proposed the application of photographic methods with prints of a much reduced size and of which an unlimited number of copies could be taken. His death in late November robbed him of the satisfaction of seeing his proposal accepted and extensively applied.
“The messages were written, still by hand, but in big characters on large sheets of card which were pinned side by side and photographically reduced. A further improvement occurred when Blaise succeeded in printing messages on both sides of the photographic paper.
“Yet another improvement was the introduction of letter-press as a partial replacement of manuscript.”
[Hayhurst’s tale continues and the highly intriguing figure known only as “Dagron” makes his appearance on the dead media stage.]
“At the Exposition Universelle of 1867 in Paris, a photographer, Dagron, had demonstrated a remarkable standard of microphotography which he had described in “Traite de Photographie Microscopique” published in Paris in 1864. Arrangements were made for him to leave Paris by balloon, accompanied by two colleagues, Fernique and Poisot, the latter being his son-in-law. For making the journey by balloon, Dagron was to receive 25,000 francs (to be paid by the delegation at Tours) and Fernique 15,000 francs (to be paid before he left Paris). In the event of their deaths during the journey, their widows would each have an annual pension of 3,000 francs for life.
“They departed on 12th November in the appropriately named balloons Niepce and Daguerre, but the latter, with the equipment and pigeons in it, was shot down, fell within the Prussian lines and was lost. The Niepce was also shot down and landed in Prussian-held territory, but Dagron and his companions just escaped capture, losing still more of their equipment and becoming separated.
“Shorn of his equipment and finding unsatisfactory replacements at Tours, Dagron failed to achieve what he had promised by way of.. images ‘prenant le nom du point,’ in other words, microdots. Dagron had sought to reproduce a page of the Moniteur in 1 sq mm
Dagron finally attained success on 11th December. Thereafter, all the despatches were on microfilm, with a reduction of rather more than forty diameters, a performance that even today evokes admiration and yet he was achieving it a century ago. These later microfilms weighed about 0.05 gm and a pigeon would carry up to 20 of them.
“The introduction of the Dagron microfilms eased any problems there might have been in claims for transport since their volumetric requirements were very small. For example: one tube sent during January contained 21 microfilms, of which 6 were official despatches and 15 were private
“In order to improve the chances of the despatches successfully reaching Paris, the same despatch was sent by several pigeons; one official despatch was repeated 35 times and the later private despatches were repeated on average 22 times. The practice was the send off the despatches not only by pigeons of the same release but also of successive releases until Paris signalled the arrival of those despatches.
“When the pigeon reached its particular loft in Paris, its arrival was announced by a bell in the trap in the loft. Immediately, a watchman relieved it of its tube which was taken to the Central Telegraph Office where the content was carefully unpacked and placed between two thin sheets of glass. The photographs are said to have been projected by magic lantern on to a screen where the enlargement could be easily read and written down by a team of clerks. This should certainly be true for the microfilms but the earlier despatches on photographic paper were read through microscopes.
“The transcribed messages were written out on forms (telegraph forms for private messages, with or without the special annotation ‘pigeon’ ) and so delivered. The first private messages got to their destinations fairly quickly, but with the increasing volume of traffic during and after November and the deterioration of the weather from mid-December, from handing in to delivery could easily span two months.”
“The despatches “The content of nearly every despatch, official and private, which was photographed is known today. As has already been said, the letterpress of each set of private despatches was used to provide a permanent printed record and a total of 580 pages were bound together in six volumes, a set of which is in the Musee Postal.
“The official despatches were in a mixture of numerical cypher and clear language. The greater part of all the official despatches was in manuscript; messages in manuscript could be produced more quickly than in letterpress.
“Before leaving the official despatches , it is appropriate to mention two bogus official despatches sent by the Prussians. When the Daguerre fell within enemy lines on 12th November, 6 pigeons were saved from the Prussians and used to notify Paris of the loss of the balloon. The remaining pigeons were caught by the Prussians who later released 6 of them with messages calculated to dismay Paris. One message was: ‘Rouen 7 decembre. A gouvernement Paris—Rouen occupe par Prussians, qui marchent sur Cherbourg. Population rural les acclame; deliberez. Orleans repris par ces diables. Bourges et Tours menaces. Armee de la Loure completement defaite. Resistance n’offre plus plus aucune chance de salut, A Lavertujon’
“The pigeons reached Paris on 9th December going to the loft of Nobecourt, whose father carried the message to Rampont. The fraud was apparent; it was known that Nobecourt had been captured and Lavertujon, a French official, was actually in Paris. Another message in similar terms arrived addressed to the editor of Figaro. These messages were tied to the pigeons with ordinary thread, whereas the French always used wax thread; further evidence of the attempt at deception. The conclusion that the message had come from the enemy was, however, scant consolation for the bitterness of learning almost immediately that they were partly true: Rouen and Orleans were in Prussian hands.”
“[The pigeon post service] permitted the transmission of postal orders with a maximum value of 300 francs. 1,370 orders with a value of 190,000 francs were sent by pigeon.”
“The method of operation was announced to the public inside and outside Paris in a special supplement to No 7 of the Gazette des Absents (one of the miniature newspapers published for carriage out of Paris by balloon) and again in No 8. In a letter written in Paris and addressed outside, a correspondent could ask four questions, each capable of being answered by a ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ With the letter would go a card purchased at a post office for the price of the 5 centimes postage stamp affixed to it. The recipient of the letter then entered in four columns his answers as oui or non on the card, taking care to get the order right, affixed a 1 franc postage stamp to the card, and sent it to the designated post office. [The cards were sent to the microfilmist Dagron at his labs in Tours and Bordeaux.] The message, consisting of the address, the ouis and nons transcribed as o’s and n’s, and the replier’s name, was included in a page among messages in clear language, and the whole photographed and, in due course, formed part of a despatch. There were about 30,000 messages so abridged, representing about one-quarter of all the private messages.
“Also included in the private despatches were messages under the heading ‘Services et Autorisations’ which were intended to be official messages. There were many abuses and numerous messages which were so s
ent were personal message from officials with access to the service. Dagron himself sent many messages on behalf of others; these can be recognized by the real sender’s name being followed by that of Dagron.
“The success of the pigeon post. did not pass unnoticed by the military forces of the European powers and in the years that followed the Franco-Prussian War pigeon sections were established in their armies. The advent of wireless communication led to a diminution of their employment although in certain particular applications pigeons provided the only method of communication. But never again were pigeons called upon to perform such a great public service as that which they had maintained during the seige of Paris.”
[Dagron died in Paris on 13th June 1900 at the age of 81.]
Source: The Pigeon Post into Paris 1870-1871 by John Douglas Hayhurst Published by the author at 65, Ford Bridge Road, Ashford Middlesex 1970 Dewey: 383.144 H331p University of Texas Library
the pigeon post and the balloon post
From Marcus J Ranum
“The use of homing pigeons to carry messages is as old as Solomon, and the ancient Greeks, to whom the art of training birds came probably from the Persians, conveyed the names of Olympic victors to their various cities by this means. Before the electric telegraph this method of communication had a considerable vogue amongst stockbrokers and financiers.
“The Dutch government established a civil and military pigeon system in Java and Sumatra early in the 19th century, the birds being obtained from Bagdad.
“Details of the emplyment of pigeons in the siege of Paris in 1870-71 will be found in the article Post and Postal Service: France. This led to a revival in the training of pigeons for military purposes. Numerous private societies were established for keeping pigeons of this class in all important European countries; and, in time, various governments established systems of communication for military purposes by pigeon post.
“When the possibility of using the birds between military fortresses had been thoroughly tested attention was turned to their use for naval purposes, to send messages between coast stations and ships at sea. They are also found of great use by news agencies and private individuals. Governments have in several countries established lofts of their own. Laws have been passed making the destruction of such pigeons a serious offence; premiums to stimulate efficiency have been offered to private societies, and rewards given for destruction of birds of prey.
“Pigeons have been used by newspapers to report yacht races, and some yachts have actually been fitted with lofts. It has also been found of great importance to establish registration of all birds. [mjr: bird escrow? Clipper birds?] “In order to hinder the efficiency of the systems of foreign countries, difficulties have been placed in the way of the importation of birds for training, and in a few cases falcons have been specially trained to interrupt the service in war-time, the Germans having set the example by deploying hawks against the Paris pigeons in 1870-71.
“No satisfactory method of protecting the weaker birds seems to have been evolved, though the Chinese formerly provided their birds with whistles and bells to scare away birds of prey.
“In view of the development of wireless telegraphy, the modern tendency is to consider fortress warfare as the only sphere in which pigeons can be expected to render really valuable services. Consequently, the British Admiralty has discontinued its pigeon service, which had attained a high standard of efficiency, and other powers will no doubt follow the example. Nevertheless, large numbers of the birds are, and will presumably continue to be, kept at the great inland fortresses of France, Germany, and Russia. [POST AND POSTAL SERVICE: FRANCE] “The ingenuity of the French postal authorities was severely tried by the exigencies of the German War of 1870-1. The first contrivance was to organize a pigeon service carrying microscopic despatches prepared by the aid of photographic appliances. The number of postal pigeons employed was 363 if which number 57 returned with despatches.
“During the height of the siege the English postal authorities received letters for transmission by pigeon post into Paris by way of Tours subject to the regulation that no information concerning the war was given, that the number of words did not exceed twenty, that the letters were delivered open, at 5d a word, with a registration fee of 6d prepaid as postage. At this rate the postage of the 200 letters on each folio was L40, that on the eighteen pellicles of sixteen folios each, carried by one pigeon, L11,520. Each despatch was repeated until its arrival had been acknowledged by balloon post; consequently many were sent off twenty and sometimes more than thirty times.
“The second step was to establish a regular system of postal balloons, fifty one being employed for letter service and six for telegraphic service. To M. Durnouf belongs much of the honour of making the balloon service successful. On the basis of experiments carried out by him a decree of the 26th of September 1870 regulated the new postal system. Out of sixty-four several ascents, each costing on the average L200, fifty-seven achieved their purpose, notwithstanding the building by Krupp of twenty guns, supplied with telescopic apparatus, for the destruction of the postal balloons. Only five were captured, and two others lost at sea.
“The aggregate weight of the letters and newspapers thus aerially mailed by the French post office amounted to about eight tons and a half, including upwards of 3,000,000 letters; and besides the aeronauts, ninety-five passengers were conveyed.
“The heroism displayed by the French balloon postmen was equalled by that of many of the ordinary letter carriers in the conveyance of letters through the catacombs and quarries of Paris and its suburbs, and, under various disguises, often through the midst of the Prussian army. Several lost their lives in the discharge of their duty, in some cases saving their dispatches by the sacrifice.”
Source: Encyclopedia Britannica 11th edition
even more about the pigeon post
[Gerard Holzmann is from the Computing Science Research Center at AT&T Bell Labs. Bjorn Pehrson is with the Department of TeleInformatics at the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden. This book is obviously a labor of love involving years of tireless efforts in the archives, and it’s hard to imagine a better book being written about the history and the technical details of optical telegraphy. Truly a must-have item for any serious dead media researcher; the book is worth the price for the meticulous bibliography alone. As a bonus, the entire first chapter is about long-distance media that are even older and dead than optical telegraphy—including pigeon post.]
“It is said that the outcomes of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece, around 776 BC, were sent by pigeons. But even in those days this must have been old news. As noted in a book by David Woods [A history of tactical communications techniques, New York, Arno Press, reprint 1974]: “in the days of the Pharaohs the Egyptians announced the arrival of important visitors by releasing pigeons from incoming ships. This may have been common as early as 2900 BC.’
“The writer Harry Neal noted another ingenious use of pigeons from a few centuries later. He stated that King Sargon of Akkad, who lived ca. 2350 BC in Mesopotamia, had each of his messengers carry a homing pigeon. If the messenger was attacked en route, he released the pigeon. The return of the pigeon to the palace was taken as a warning that the original message had been ‘lost,’ and that a new messenger should be sent, presumably by another route.
“Homing pigeons were also used by the Romans, around the fourth century AD. In 1641, John Wilkins referred to it as follows [”Mercury, or the secret and swift messenger, showing how a Man may with Privacy and Speed communicate his thoughts to a Friend” 1641, republished in Foundations in Semiotics Vol 6 1984] ‘Lypsius relates out of Varro, that it was usual for the Roman magistrates when they went unto the theatre, or other such public meetings, whence they could not return at pleasure, to carry a pigeon with them; that if any unexpected business should happen, they might thereby give warning to their friends or families at home.’
“The system was still in use some eight c
enturies later. Woods reports that in the twelfth century Genghis Khan (1167-1227) used a pigeon relay system to communicate messages across Asia and much of Europe.
“Another seven centuries later, in 1918, the British Air Force kept over 20,000 homing pigeons, handled by 380 pigeoneers. The system was organized by Colonel A. H. Osman. Woods quotes him as follows: ‘A small balloon was constructed with a metal [release-] band worked by clockwork. To this band was attached a small basket containing a single pigeon with a message holder on its leg, and to each basket was attached a small parachute. The balloons were liberated in favourable conditions of wind and at intervals automatically released from the special ring a single basket with a bird. These were dropped into Belgian and French territory when occupied by the Germans, and in French and Flemish a request was made to the finder to supply intelligence information that was needed, at the same time giving the finder hopefulness and cheer as to the ultimate success of the allies’ cause and promising reward for the information supplied.
“Woods adds a sobering note: ‘The Germans tried to stop this activity by replacing captured pigeons with their own birds, and then arresting and shooting anyone foolish enough to sign his name and address to the note.’
“With this much history, it is not surprising that pigeons were still used in 1981 by a group of engineers at a Lockheed plant in Sunnyvale, California, to transmit negatives of drawings to a test station 40 km away. As Jon Bentley described it: [More Programming Pearls, Confessions of a Coder, Addison-Wesley 1988] The pigeon took just half the time and less than one percent of the dollar amount of the car (the birds worked, literally, for pigeon feed). Over a 16-month period the pigeons transmitted hundreds of rolls of film and lost only two.”
Source: The Early History of Data Networks by Gerard J. Holzmann and Bjorn Pehrson, IEEE Computer Society Press, 1995 TK 5115 H67 1994 ISBN 0-8186-6782-6
The Dead Media Notebook Page 10