The Snail Telegraph of Jacques Benoit

Science was so much cooler back when every random crazy could fashion themselves a scientist: consider the "pasialinic-sympathetic compass", or snail telegraph, invented by 19th century French occultist Jacques Tousaint Benoit.

Benoit was convinced that any two snails that had once mated remained forever in telepathic contact, no matter the distance between them. Touch one, and its mate would move. Based on this principle, Benoit devised a pair of contraptions consisting of 24 snails glued to the bottom of a bowl, each representing a different letter of the alphabet. Each snail’s mate was affixed, with a corresponding label, to a receiving device that could be installed anywhere in the world. “Space was not considered by snails. Place one in Paris, the other at the antipodes, the transmission of thought along their sympathetic current as complete, instantaneous and effective as in his room on the troisieme,” writes Sabine Baring-George in the 1889 book Historic Oddities and Strange Events.

As you might expect, the device didn't work very well: the device worked pretty lamely even considering the fact that the inventor felt compelled to "supervise" each antipode to make sure his assistants were touching or reading the snails correctly.

Snail Telegraphy [Kircher Society]