In 1850, a French inventor announced a discovery that promised to revolutionize communication. His invention, he claimed, could transmit messages instantaneously across any distance, without the need for electrical wires, cables, or any other conventional means of communication. It could connect people in different cities, countries, or even at opposite ends of the world. At the time it was an extraordinary idea, since wireless telegraphy would not be demonstrated by Marconi for another forty-five years. What made the technology even more remarkable was that it relied on a mysterious biological connection between two creatures that most people would never have considered useful for communication: snails.
Credit: Randy Merrill
The invention was called the Pasilalinic-Sympathetic Compass. It was conceived by Jacques-Toussaint Benoît (de l'Hérault), with the alleged assistance of an American associate named Biat-Chrétien. Benoît believed that snails that had once mated retained an invisible sympathetic bond, allowing them to transmit signals to one another even when separated by enormous distances.
The proposal emerged at a time when the electrical telegraph was transforming the world. The possibility of sending messages over wires had already captured the public imagination, and inventors were searching for ways to make communication faster, cheaper, and more accessible. Benoît's invention promised to eliminate the need for physical connections altogether. He claimed that he had constructed an apparatus capable of exploiting the supposed sympathetic connection between snails, and he sought to demonstrate that it could transmit messages across distances that conventional telegraphy could not easily reach.
Benoît's theory was rooted in the belief that living organisms possessed forms of invisible energy capable of influencing one another at a distance. Such ideas were not entirely unusual in the 19th century. The discovery of electricity and the experiments of Luigi Galvani and Alessandro Volta had stimulated widespread interest in the relationship between electricity and biological life.
Galvani's experiments with frog legs had demonstrated that electrical stimulation could cause muscles to contract. Volta subsequently challenged Galvani's explanation of the phenomenon and developed the electrical battery. These discoveries helped establish the foundations of modern electrical science.
Benoît, however, took these ideas in a very different direction. He believed that living creatures could establish a permanent sympathetic connection through an invisible fluid. His proposed communication system depended on the peculiar claim that snails retained a lasting connection after mating. According to the theory, two snails that had been brought into contact with one another would remain sympathetically linked. Even after being separated, they could supposedly continue to influence one another through an invisible current. Benoît believed that this current could be harnessed to transmit signals. By stimulating one snail, an operator could supposedly produce a corresponding reaction in its distant partner. The reaction could then be interpreted as a letter, number, or other symbol.
Benoît managed to persuad a man named Monsieur Triat, the manager of a Parisian gymnasium, to support his experiments. Triat was a man of practical sensibilities, though he reportedly lacked the scientific education necessary to evaluate Benoît's extraordinary claims. The inventor, however, possessed considerable powers of persuasion. He spoke with such conviction about the revolutionary nature of his discovery that Triat became captivated by the prospect of instantaneous communication across the globe.
When Triat asked what was required to construct the machine, Benoît gave him an astonishingly modest answer: "Only two or three bits of wood."
The response seemed to suggest that the invention was already perfected in the inventor's mind and required little more than some carpentry to bring it into existence. Triat promptly took Benoît to his own carpenter's workshop, where he offered him both the necessary materials and the assistance of a carpenter.
His generosity extended well beyond the workshop. Triat arranged for Benoît to have accommodation in Paris. He also provided him with a regular allowance to cover his living expenses and financed the additional materials required for his experiments.
Triat believed that he was supporting a man on the verge of a major technological breakthrough, one that might eventually bring him considerable recognition and financial rewards. The months that followed, however, proved disappointing. Benoît consumed increasing amounts of wood, the carpenter's time, and Triat's money. Additional materials were required, and the supposedly simple machine gradually became a much more elaborate undertaking.
A year passed, and Triat's patience began to wear thin. He had provided Benoît with accommodation, funds, and access to his workshop, yet the inventor seemed no closer to producing the promised device. Triat eventually refused to provide any more money. It was at this point that Benoît announced that the machine was finally complete.
The machine that Benoît eventually produced was considerably more complicated than the two or three pieces of wood he had initially requested. According to Sabine Baring-Gould's later account in Historic Oddities and Strange Events, the apparatus consisted of an enormous wooden scaffold constructed from beams approximately ten feet long. Two such structures were erected in Benoît's apartment, one at either end of the room.
Each apparatus supported a circular arrangement of twenty-four zinc basins, corresponding to the letters of the French alphabet. The basins were lined with cloth soaked in a solution of copper sulphate, with copper strips attached to them. At the bottom of each basin was a snail. The animals had been selected and paired in advance, supposedly through mating. Benoît claimed that each snail maintained a permanent sympathetic connection with its partner in the corresponding basin of the other instrument.
The snails were attached to the bottoms of the zinc bowls with an adhesive substance. The apparatus was therefore not a particularly pleasant environment for the animals. Baring-Gould described them as attempting to escape from their basins, extending their tentacles and crawling towards the wooden framework. When they encountered the copper sulphate solution, they reportedly recoiled into their shells.
The wooden framework itself was marked with letters corresponding to the individual snails. An operator could supposedly transmit a letter by touching the snail associated with it. Its distant partner would then react, allowing the receiving operator to identify the corresponding character.
Benoît insisted that the distance separating the instruments was immaterial. The two machines could supposedly be installed in different cities, or even on opposite sides of the globe, without affecting the transmission of messages. However, Benoît's apartment did not contain two separate rooms large enough to accommodate the apparatus. Consequently, both machines were erected in the same room, facing one another.
For a demonstration, Benoît invited Jules Allix, a journalist associated with the influential newspaper La Presse, along with Monsieur Triat. Allix was particularly excited by the prospect of witnessing a machine that could transmit messages without electrical wires. He hoped the invention would usher in a new era of communication.
The demonstration took place in Benoît's apartment. Triat and Allix were to operate one of the instruments while Benoît managed the other. Triat objected to the fact that both machines were positioned in the same room. He suggested that a curtain or screen be placed between them so that the operator at one end could not observe what was happening at the other. Benoît objected that this was technically impossible.
The demonstration proceeded without the requested safeguards. Allix began by touching the snails corresponding to the letters of the word gymnase, meaning gymnasium. Benoît reportedly read the word as "gymoate." Next, Triat took over the transmitting apparatus and attempted to send the words lumière divine, or "divine light." Benoît reportedly received the garbled message "lumhere divine."
The supposed telegraph was struggling to communicate even simple French words across a single room. Besides, Benoît was constantly moving between the two instruments. He explained that his presence was necessary to supervise the apparatus and ensure that the snails were being stimulated and observed correctly.
Triat gradually became convinced that the inventor was manipulating the experiment. Benoît's repeated movements between the instruments provided him with opportunities to observe the transmitted letters and reproduce them at the receiving end. Allix, however, remained remarkably enthusiastic. He was apparently persuaded that the demonstration had established the validity of the invention, despite the irregularities that had so disturbed Triat.
On 27 October, La Presse published Allix's glowing account of the pasilalinic-sympathetic compass. He described the supposed sympathetic fluid connecting the snails and presented the invention as a remarkable discovery that could revolutionize communication.
Triat was not prepared to accept the demonstration as proof. He demanded that Benoît conduct another experiment under stricter conditions. The two instruments were to be placed in separate rooms, or at the very least divided by a screen. Benoît would also be prohibited from moving between them while the messages were being transmitted.
Triat even offered a substantial financial incentive. If Benoît could successfully transmit a single word under these conditions, he would receive a thousand francs for every day the apparatus continued to work.
The proposal attracted the interest of Émile de Girardin, the publisher of La Presse, who had apparently been intrigued by Allix's account. Girardin offered another thousand francs a day and suggested that, if the invention proved successful, the experiments could be staged publicly at the Jardin d'Hiver in Paris.
Benoît initially agreed to the proposed test. However, when the appointed day arrived, he had disappeared.
According to Baring-Gould, Benoît was subsequently seen wandering the streets of Paris in a destitute condition. He died in 1852, leaving behind no convincing demonstration of his invention.
The pasilalinic-sympathetic compass consequently became a notorious example of an extraordinary technological claim that failed when subjected to scrutiny.
References:
# Sabine Baring-Gould. Historic Oddities and Strange Events, Volume 1
# Jules Allix. The Pasilalinic Sympathetic Compass
# From the archives: Jacques Benoit’s (failed) experiments with telepathic snails. The Skeptic
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