148 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



I will not repeat the whole story in detail, but 

 merely endeavour to show briefly how undeniable 

 these statements are. 



The Jubilee of the Electric Telegraph should really 

 have been celebrated in 1866, instead of in 1887, as 

 it actually was ; celebrated too like the play of 

 " Hamlet " with the Prince of Denmark left out ; 

 for the one to whom primary honours were due, 

 namely, Sir Francis Ronalds, was not even men- 

 tioned in the laudatory speeches that glorified the 

 occasion ! 



It will suffice to simply point out that Mr. Ronalds 

 (afterwards tardily knighted when eighty-three years 

 of age) erected a working telegraph at Hammersmith 



J 1, , 

 Fig. 84.— Birthplace of the Electric Telegraph. 



so early as the year 1816, at a time when those who 

 bore away the later laurels, and something more, 

 of the invention were mere lads ; and he still further 

 made the fact indelible by illustrating and describing 

 his invention minutely in a small book published by 

 him in 1823. 



Were any further proofs necessary they may be 

 found in the interesting matters related in the 

 following letters : — 



"Hammersmith, December 6th, 1871. 

 "Dear Sir, — About five or six years ago I was 

 in the garden (then rented by a friend of mine) 



wherein this telegraph was laid down, when it was 

 dug for and found after a lapse of upwards of forty 

 years ; what was then found and seen agreeing with 

 the descriptions given in the book. Several yards of 

 copper-wire were found where the ground had not 

 been disturbed, by reason of a large rustic garden 

 seat and alcove having been over it ; a glass tube, 

 or the greater part of one, with the copper-wire in 

 it ; and one of the joints with a short tube (glass) 

 were also found : the copper-wire seemed to be in 

 perfect order. The wooden trough and pitch had 

 become consolidated with the earth, which was as 

 hard as, and formed an opening like that of, a drain- 

 tile, or the run of a burrowing animal. — Yours truly, 



" J. A. Peacock." 



In April, 1870, Mr. Thomas Gibson wrote to Sir 

 Francis Ronalds : 



" How well I remember when a school-boy, fifty- 

 five years ago, seeing the clock apparatus in your 

 little upper room over the stable, connected with 

 another at the bottom of the garden, of the meaning 

 of which I had but a very hazy apprehension ; also 

 the lines of wire stretched from frame to frame across 

 the grassplot." 



Fortunately, I was able to make the above sketch 

 of the very place as it still exists at Hammersmith, 

 wherein this incalculable invention had its birth, and 

 although comparatively unknown on account of its 

 earlier and greater honours as a monument of 

 scientific discovery, the place is noteworthy as 

 being attached to the residence of Mr. Morris, the 

 well-known poet and artistic philosopher. 



Beautifully situated, although not outwardly 

 handsome, Kelmscott House, on the tree-shaded 

 Mall, at Hammersmith, is a notable place for many 

 reasons, but for the present purpose that little old- 

 fashioned coach-house with its upper room is the 

 centre of attraction, because that tiny room was 

 absolutely the first electric telegraph station in 

 existence, and from it Ronalds literally " fired a 

 shot heard round the world," for occasionally his 

 experimental telegraph signalled by means of pistol- 

 charges exploded by the current. 



He employed frictional electricity ; the main 

 advance made later by Cooke and Wheatstone 

 consisting in their use of a galvanic current ; but for 

 the rest, as Mr. Ronalds wrote in reply to Mr. Cooke 

 in 1S67, it appears that some of the instruments shown 

 in his book were closely imitated in the partners' 

 specification of 1S40, and the revolving dial-plate 

 and electric indicator became the type for all 

 subsequent dial telegraphs, while he foresaw and 

 described the embarrassing phenomenon of retard- 

 ation of current long before it became a practical 

 difficulty in the working of submarine lines, and 

 first effected the complete insulation of over and 

 underground wires. 



