Joseph Hamel

“ 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. ”

“ It was reserved for Baron Schilling, at St. Petersburg, to make the first electro-magnetic telegraph. Having become, as we know, through Soemmerring, at Munich, passionately fond of the art of telegraphing by means of galvanism, he now used for it the deflection of the needle, which he placed within the multiplier of Schweigger horizontally on a light vertical axle hanging on a silken thread, and bearing a circular disc of paper, coloured differently on each side. ”

“ 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." ”

“ That Soemmerring in Germany made a telegraph, in which the chemical action of the galvanic current on water produced the signals, is known, but nobody has taken the trouble to discover how he was induced to construct it. Even the time when it was made is nowhere accurately given. Often it is stated wrongly by one, two, three, and, in one case, by nine years. It is surprising that the highly meritorious Steinheil, who lives in the very place where Soemmerring had made the first galvanic telegraph, errs likewise by two years. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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!” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Dr. Jackson had with him on board a small electro-magnet, which he had bought in Paris, at Pixii fils, and also a small galvanic battery. He pointed out some means as likely to serve for the purpose mentioned, by sketches, some of which I have seen in Dr. Jackson's pocket-book.
Arrived at New York, Morse endeavoured to gain his livelihood, as had been the case formerly, by painting portraits.
He being now always called Professor, most persons believe that he is a professor of natural philosophy, or some other branch of natural science, but this is not the case. ”

“ This alarum arrangement gave Soemmerring much pleasure, which he expresed in his journal with some detail. He wrote: “If the principal part of the telegraph gave me no trouble and demanded no alteration, but was ready in a few days, this secondary object, the alarum, cost me a great deal of reflection and many useless trials with wheelwork, which was driven by the streams of gas in the water to set the clockwork going, till at last I hit upon this very simple arrangement.” ”

“ Mr. Cooke and Professor Wheatstone well deserve thanks for having given the example in applying the electric telegraph to practical use for society at large. I allow myself here to state my feelings of regret, that Baron Schilling did not live to get informed of this application; he died just before it began to take place.
In America, the first telegraph line, from Washington to Baltimore, was completed in 1844. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Professor Wheatstone was at that time not yet sure whether the electro-magnet would work sufficiently well at considerable distances, and Mr. Cooke, who had left on the continent the instrument made at Heidelberg, constructed another like it with four deflecting needles. The opinion was, that the principle on which "Möncke's" instrument worked would be the best to adopt for practical use. Neither Professor Wheatstone, nor Mr. Cooke, knew that in so doing they were adopting Baron Schilling's plan. ”

“ Unfortunately the new telegraph, which was to replace the original one taken by Larrey to Paris, was not yet quite ready to perform experiments with.
At the time when Soemmerring became a member of the Academy of Sciences at Munich, in 1805, there was attached to the Russian mission in that capital the Baron Pawel Lwowitch Schilling (of Canstadt) . About a year after the invention of the telegraph, on the 13th of August 1810, Schilling saw experiments performed with it. ”

“ It was here that Steinheil first applied his so highly valued discovery that the earth may serve for conducting the return current, so that one half of the suspended wires became useless.
Already, in 1833, the Cabinet of natural philosophy,, of the University at Göttingen, had been, by means of wires in the air, united by Professor Wilhelm Weber, with the Astronomical Observatory, distant 3,000 feet, to which, in 1834, was added the Magnetic Observatory, situated near it. ”