Heliograph in a sentence as a noun

Not to take anything away from his legacy, but isn't it a stretch to talk about the "invention" of email when we had telex, telegrams, heliography, scrolls of vellum carried by Roman messenger, and so on?

Heliograph definitions

noun

an apparatus for sending telegraphic messages by using a mirror to turn the sun's rays off and on

verb

signal by means of a mirror and the using the sun's rays