Joseph Hamel

“ The small sprout, nursed on the Neva, which had been exhibited on the Rhine, and thence brought to the Thames, grew up here to a mighty tree, the fruit-laden branches of which, along with those from trees grown up since, extend more and more over the lands and seas of the Eastern hemisphere, whilst kindred trees, planted in the Western hemisphere, have covered that part of the world with their branches, some of which will, ere long, be interwoven with those on our side of the globe. ”

“ INTO ENGLAND. The “Historical Account of the Introduction of the Galvanic and Electro-Magnetic Telegraph,” lately published in England, by Dr. Hamel, of St. Petersburgh, is a work of permanent historical value.
It has been written with the declared object of claiming for his countryman, Baron Schilling, and for his country, Russia, the honour of the first realization of the idea of an electric telegraph. Dr. Hamel might have made a like, and much stronger claim in behalf of Dr. Soemmering, of Munich; for he proves him to have invented and made in 1809 the first galvanic telegraph on record ”

“ Ten days after Baron Schilling’s first taking notice of the telegraph, on the 23rd of August, 1810, Soemmerring succeeded in inventing a contrivance for sounding an alarum, which answered perfectly well. He made the gas, rising in small bubbles from two of the wire points in the water, collect under a sort of inverted glass spoon at the end of a long lever, which, rising, made a second, bent, lever in the opposite direction, on the same axle, descend and throw off a little perforated leaden ball, stuck lightly on it, which, falling on an escapement, set the clockwork in action. ”

“ I used six wires forming three metallic circuits and influencing three needles. I worked out every possible permutation and practical combination of the signals given by the three needles, and I thus obtained an alphabet of twenty-six signals. I had invented the instrument which I called the detector; by means of which injuries to the wires, whether from water, fracture, or contact, are readily traced; an instrument which, in practice, is never out of my hand, and without which the electric telegraph would be impracticable. ”

“ Was not this to make the Americans suppose that Baron Schilling, Weber, Gauss, Steinheil, Cooke and Wheat-stone might have learnt from Samuel Morse the art of telegraphing by electro-magnetism? As it was also mentioned that Morse had his telegraph then near his lodgings, there came on the same day several curious persons to see " the wonder of the age." ”

“ Cooke is entitled to stand alone, as the gentleman to whom this country is indebted for having practically introduced and carried out the Electric Telegraph as a useful undertaking, promising to be a work of national importance; and Professor Wheatstone is acknowled as the scientific man, whose profound and successful researches have already prepared the public to receive it as a project capable of practical application ”

“ Electro-Magnetic Telegraph. The art of telegraphing by means of galvanism and electro-magnetism is certainly the most interesting application of scientific acquirements ever made to purposes useful to society at large. By means of it, ere long, the inhabitants of the various parts of the globe will be able to correspond with each other, through oceans and seas, to a far greater extent than is probably within the expectation of most people. ”

“ Professor Muncke’s experiment was at that time the only one upon the subject that I had seen or heard of. It showed that electric currents being conveyed by wires to a distance could be there caused to deflect magnetic needles and thereby to give signals. It was, in a word, a hint at the application of electricity to telegraphic purposes, but nothing more—for it provided no means of applying that power to practical uses. His apparatus consisted of two instruments for giving signals by a single needle, placed in different rooms, with a battery belonging to each ”

“ The war then impending between France and Russia made Baron Schilling desirous of finding a means by which such a conducting cord should serve for telegraphic correspondence between fortified place and the field, and likewise for exploding powder-mines across rivers.
On the 8th of April Soemmerring wrote in his diary: “Schilling arrives, almost out of breath, with his idea about blowing up mines. Take care! Take care!” ”

“ During the battle at Wagram, near Vienna, which closed the Austrian campaign, Napoleon I. had, on the 6th July, 1809, (the day on which Soemmerring began to make his telegraph) created a Baron, and subsequently at St. Helena, in his will, he left him one hundred thousand francs, adding, “C’est l’homme le plus vertueux que j’aie connu.” In August and September, 1826, Baron Larrey had made a tour in England, Scotland and Ireland with his son Hippolyte, now Surgeon-in-ordinary to the Emperor Napoleon III., whom he lately accompanied to Italy. ”

“ Arago had hardly got to Paris, when, on the 4th September, he communicated to the Academy of Sciences what he had seen at Geneva. He was requested to repeat Oersted’s experiment, which he did at the sitting of the Academy on the 11th. Two weeks after that Arago communicated to the Academy his observation that the galvanic conductors attracted needles that were not magnetised.
It deserves here to be remembered that, from Aldini’s book, it was known that the chemist Giuseppi Mojon, at Genoa, had, before 1804, observed in unmagnetised needles, exposed to the galvanic current, a sort of polarity. ”

“ Larrey is represented pressing Napoleon’s last will against his heart. After Baron Larrey’s departure from Munich, Soemmerring composed a description of his telegraphic apparatus in French, under the title: “Mémoire sur le Télégraphe,” which, on the 12th of November, he forwarded to Larrey, in Paris. As he flattered himself that the Baron would find an opportunity to exhibit the telegraph before the Emperor Napoleon, he begged, in his letter, to be informed with what attention His Imperial Majesty might honour his invention. ”

“ The effect of this arrangement was, that if a current was transmitted from either battery, when the opposite ends of the wires were in connexion with the distant telegraphic apparatus, either the cross would be there exhibited by the motion of the needle one way, or the line by its motion the other way, according to the direction of the current. The apparatus was worked by moving the ends of the wires backwards and forwards between the battery and the coils.”
Dr. Hamel’s third point is, that Muncke’s copy of Schilling’s telegraph was imported by Cooke into England, and there adopted. ”

“ It is hardly possible that Gauss should not have had a knowledge of Schilling's labours. Professor Weber had been, in 1835, at Bonn, present at the meeting of the Section of natural philosophy and chemistry, when Baron Schilling exhibited his telegraph.
During the journey which Baron Schilling undertook in 1835, he had made, together with Baron Jacquiri and Professor Andreas von Ettingshausen, at Vienna, a series of experiments, with a view to find out the comparative merits of placing the conducting wires over the roofs of houses in the air, and of laying them in the earth. ”

“ The following short statement of the facts has, therefore, at their request, been drawn up by us the undersigned Sir M. Isambard Brunel, Engineer of the Thames Tunnel, and Professor Daniell, of King’s College, as a document which either party may at pleasure make publicly known. ”

“ To make the needle move steadily and prevent oscillations, Schilling had fixed to the lower extremity of its axle a strip of thin platina plate and immersed it in a cup of mercury. By degrees he simplified the apparatus. For a time he used five needles, and, at last, he was able to signalise even with one single needle and multiplier, producing by a combination of movements in the two directions all the signs for letters and numbers. Having known Soemmerring's alarum, Schilling invented one for his telegraph also. ”

“ Since the formation of the partnership, the undertaking has rapidly progressed, under the constant and equally successful exertions of the parties in their distinct departments, until it has attained the character of a simple and practical system, worked out scientifically on the sure basis of actual experience. ”

“ He wrote to Schilling about Count Capo d’Istria: “Never has any body, except yourself, at the first glance comprehended every thing so clearly, and conceived how easily the telegraph might be applied on a large scale.”
In 1819 there was a prospect of Soemmerring’s telegraph being brought to London.
Already, on the 3rd of June, 1817, Count Arco, brother to the Countess Montgelas, had introduced to Soemmerring Lionel Hervey, [8] then lately appointed British Secretary of Legation at Munich, in order that he might have an opportunity of seeing the telegraph. ”

“ Cooke and Wheatstone’s apparatus “was, in the essential part, founded on the same principle as Baron Schilling’s, namely, the deflection of needles hy multipliers.”—Hamel, p. 56. ↑ The effect produced by the practical Electric Telegraph on an intelligent mind, long accustomed to the Electro-telegraphic Experiments of a lecture-room, is depicted with great naivete by the late Professor Daniell of King’s College, in a letter, written, after seeing for the first time, Cooke and Wheatstone’s Electric Telegraph in operation between Euston Square and Camden Town ”

“ So we know now, that the Honourable Francis James Lamb, third Viscount Melbourne, brother to Lady Palmerston, was the first Englishman that ever saw a telegraph put in action by a galvanic battery, and that it was the Russian Baron Schilling who invited him to take notice of it. ”

“ Baron Schilling, Baron Jacquin and Professor Ettingshausen, at Vienna, concluded that the suspending of the wires in the air was the better method. [15] After all that had been accomplished before the month of September, 1837, in Europe by Baron Schilling, by Weber and Gauss, by Steinheil, and by Cooke and Wheatstone, it is offensive to observe that in America the painter Morse, who made, cm the 4th September, 1837, a poor experiment which he considered "successful," is held out as having made an electro-magnetic telegraph before anybody in Europe. ”

“ The two signal apparatuses being thus thrown into the course of the metallic circuit, every signal was given at both ends concurrently; and the cross piece was made to restore the circuit for a reply on the first communication being completed. ”

“ In one of Soemmerring’s later letters to Baron Schilling, he, alluding to his subaqueous conductor, says that the means found out by him (Schilling) to ignite, by the galvanic current, gunpowder at a distance (das Fernzünden) were more difficult to discover than his, Soemmerring’s, signalising at a distance (das Fernzeichengeben) .
After Baron Schilling’s departure from Munich, in 1812, Soemmerring occupied himself less with the telegraph. ”

“ Samuel Thomas von Soemmerring, born in 1755, at Thun, and deceased in 1830 at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, had studied at the University of Göttingen. In the year 1778 he travelled in Holland, England and Scotland. From 1779 till 1784 he was at Cassel, and from 1785 till 1796 at Mayence, Professor of Anatomy. From 1796 to 1805 he practised medicine in Frankfort, and from 1805 till 1820 he was a member of the Academy of Sciences at Munich, where the King of Bavaria had given him the title of Privy Counsellor (Geheimer Rath) . His great merits as an anatomist and physiologist are universally known. ”

“ His, for practical purposes, worthless result he had obtained four weeks after the death of our Baron Schilling, who, as we know now, had twenty seven years before that time (1810) , at Dr. Soemmerring's, at Munich, got acquainted with the first galvanic telegraph in the world, who, above a dozen, years previous had made at St. Petersburg the first electromagnetic telegraph, which he had himself two years before exhibited to the meeting of the Naturalists at Bonn, where it had so pleased that it was taken immediately to Heidelberg, and half-a-year afterwards from thence to England. ”