HENRY AND THE TELEGRAPH, 275 



latter place I had afterward the pleasure of making his acquaintance.) 

 . , . Baron Schilling having made at Scemmering's the acquaint- 

 ance of Schweigger, of course could not foresee that one day an invention 

 of this gentleman, the 'multiplier,' would enable him to make at St. 

 Petersburg, the first electro-magnetic telegraph."* 



It is impossible, in the scarcity of documentary evidence, to ascer- 

 tain at what date Schilling's long contemplated project of a galvan- 

 ometer telegraph (designed as an improvement on the galvanic telegraph 

 of his friend Soemmeriug) was first reduced to a practical or working 

 form : but it was at least as early as the year 1823, when Schilling con- 

 structed at St. Petersburg an electro-magnetic telegraph apparatus whose 

 signals were produced by five galvanometer needles, each provided with 

 its own independent galvanic circuit. Schilling was enabled to effect 

 his great simplification of an original alphabet of circuits, by the inge- 

 nious expedient of giving to each needle a iDositive and negative motion by 

 means of reversed currents, and then of combining two or more of these 

 signals. Whether this was really Schilling's first form of apparatus is 

 very doubtful ; but it is at least certain that he exhibited an operative 

 instrument before the Emperor Alexander in 1824, or in 1825.t 



Dr. Hamel remarks : " It was reserved for Baron Schilling at St. Peters- 

 burg to make the first electro-magnetic telegraph. Having become (as 

 we know) through Scemmeriug, 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 'Diultiplier' of Schweigger 

 horizontally on a light vertical axle hanging on a sillien thread, and bear- 

 ing a circular disk of jiaper colored differently on each side. . . . By 

 degrees he simplified the apparatus. For a time he used five needles, and 

 at last he was able to signalize 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 Scemmering's alarum. 

 Schilling invented one for his telegraph also. His success in bringing 

 his instruments to a high state of perfection would have been much 

 more rapid had his time not been so much occupied with various duties, 

 and particularly with the founding and directing of a large lithograi)hio 

 establishment for the Russian Government. Baron Schilling's telegraph 

 was an object of great curiosity at St. Petersburg ; it was frequently 

 exhibited bj^ him to individuals and to parties. Already the Em])eror 

 Alexander I, had beeu pleased to notice it in its earlier stage, and when 

 it was reduced to great simi)licity, his Mijjesty the Emperor ISTicholas 

 honored Baron Schilling on the 13th of March, 1830, with a visit at his 

 lodgings in Opotchinin's house, in the Konoosheunaja, to see experiments 

 performed with it through a great length of conducting wires. . . . 



" In May of the last-mentioned year (1830) Baron Schilling undertook 

 a journey to China. . . . After his return from the borders of China to 



* Journal of the Socirtij of Arts, July 22, 1850, vol. vii, pp. 597, 598. 

 tThe Emperor Alexander died iu 18'25. 



