276 HENRY AND THE TELEGRAPH. 



St. Petersburg, in March, 1832, Baron Schilling occupied himself again 

 with the telegraph, and in May, 1835, he undertook a journej' to the west 

 of Europe, talking his simplilied instrument with him. In the month of 

 September he attended the meeting of the German physicists at Bonn 

 on the Rhine, where on the 23d he exhibited his telegraph before the 

 •section of natural philosophy and chemistry, over which Professor 

 Georg Wilhelm Muncke, of the University of Heildelberg, presided. 

 Muncke was much pleased with Schilling's instrument, and he determined 

 at once to get one for exhibition at his lectures. I have lately found at 

 Heidelberg . . . in a store-room, the apparatus which Professor 

 Muncke got made in imitation of the one exhibited by Baron Schilling 

 at Bonn." * 



The conflicting accounts of Schilling's system given at a later date 

 appear to refer to instruments constructed at different periods. Thus it 

 is said that in the latter part of 1832 [!] he used a " certain number of 

 platinum wires insulated and united in a cord of silk, which put in action, 

 by the aid of a species of key, 3G magnetic needles, each of which was 

 placed vertically in the center of a multiplier. M. de Schilling was the 

 first who adapted to this kind of apparatus an ingenious mechanism 

 suitable for sounding an alarm, wliich when the needle was turned at 

 the beginning of the correspondence, was set in play by the fall of a 

 little ball of lead which the magnetic needle caused to fall. This tele- 

 graph of M. de Schilling was received with approbation by the Empe- 

 ror, who desired it established on a larger scale : but the death of the 

 inventor j)OStponed the enterprise indefinitely." f 



It is also stated in another account, that Schilling exhibited his tele- 

 graphic instruments before the Emperor Alexander. "In order to ap- 

 prise the attendant before the commencement of a telegraphic dispatch, 

 Scliilling set off an alarm. How much of his apparatus belongs prop- 

 erly to the Baron Schilling, or whether a part of it was not an imitation 

 of that of Gauss and Weber, is not for the editor to decide; but that 

 Schilling had already experimented (probably with a more imperfect ap- 

 paratus) before the Emperor Alexander, and subsequently before the 

 Emperor Nicholas, is affirmed by the authorities adduced." The account 

 describes the communications as consisting of signs devised from the 

 various combmatious of the right and left deflections of the single nee- 



*Jonnial of ihe Societt/ of Ai-ts, July 29, ISoO, vol. vii, p)i. (iOO, (507. The Jip])tinitus 

 above rel'errecl to, is iiotuworthy as beiiiji,- tLat seen by Mr. William Fotlierjjili Cooke 

 on attemlin.t;' one of the lectures by Professor Mmicke, at Heidelbevii, March (>, 1836, 

 on the electro-magnetic telegraph; and which apparatns he proceeded immediately to 

 bave re])rodnced. Keturnin,i;- to l^ondon April 22, of ihe same year, Mr. Cooke, (in con- 

 junction with Professor Wbeatstone,) succeeded l)y Iris energy in introducing the needle 

 telegraph into England : and vhus Scliilling's great invention became transplanted from 

 St. IVtersburg to Lon(h)n, witlioul either of its English introducers liaving any ideaof 

 its true origin. As Dr. Hamel remarks: ''Mr. Cooke, who liad never occupied himself 

 with (he study either of natural philosophy in general, or of electricity in particular, 

 did not at all get further acqmiinted wilb Professor ]Muncke. He did not even acquire 

 iiis name properly; he calls bim Mihicke. He had no idea that the api)aratus be bad 

 seen had been contrived by Baron .Schilling in Russia." 



\ Jxcport of the "Academj- of Industry," Paris, February, 1839. 



