French inventor who, in 1869, proposed a method of sending signals to either Mars or Venus. It involved focusing the rays from one or more electric lights by parabolic mirrors. Periodic flashing of light from the mirrors would, he suggested, send the equivalent of a Morse code message. If the signals received a response, he said, "It will be a moment of joy and pride. The eternal isolation of the spheres is vanquished." Flashes reported by Messier, Schröter, and Harding on planets such as Venus, he suggested, might be attempts by the inhabitants to communicate with us. By 1870, his ideas had spread to Italy and England.
