in series

"The idea of electrical communication seems to have begun as long ago as 1746, when about 200 monks at a monastery in Paris arranged themselves in a line over a mile long, each holding ends of 25-foot iron wires," writes Martin Redfern of BBC News. "The abbot, also a scientist, discharged a Leiden jar (a primitive electrical battery) into the wire, giving all the monks a simultaneous electrical shock. 'This all sounds very silly, but is in fact extremely important because, firstly, they all said 'ow' which showed you were sending a signal right along the line; and, secondly, they all said 'ow' at the same time, and that meant that you were sending the signal very quickly,' explains Tom Standage, author of The Victorian Internet and technology editor at the Economist."