HENRY AND THE TELEGRAPH. 297 



exaggeration of Cooke's contribution to telegraphy, not only is Scliilling's 

 fine invention (of which the arbitrators had probably never heard) 

 entirely overlooked, but even Professor Muncke's intelligent exposition 

 of it, (by Mr. Cooke's representation — a "well-known experiment,") is 

 dismissed as the recurrent exhibition "by various philosophers," — prob- 

 ably as familiar in London as in Heidelberg.* 



1837. About the date of the Cooke and Wheatstone patent (or a month 

 or two later in the same year), a different form of electro-magnetic tele- 

 graph was being slowly developed in the city of Xew York. In the 

 autumn of the year 1835, an American artist of acknowledged merit and 

 of liberal education, a graduate of Yale College, about forty-five years 

 of age, was apj)ointed professor of the arts of design in the University 

 of the city of Kew Y^ork, then recently established.! Occupying 

 rooms in the unfinished building, he commenced experimenting on an 

 electro-magnetic recording telegraph, the idea of which had for several 

 years been floating in his mind. An upright square frame secured to 

 the edge of a table, was provided with a transverse strip or shelf about 

 midway of its height, on which was arranged a small Sturgeon electro- 

 magnet lying ui^on its side, with its poles directed outward from the 

 side of the frame. Directly in front of this, a wooden pendulum sus- 

 pended fi'om the toj) bar of the frame and having at its middle a small 

 iron bar acting as an armature for the magnet, was allowed a small play 

 to and from the lower part of the frame. To the lower end of the pen- 

 dulum was attached a pencil projecting downward, and made adjustable 

 so as to bear lightly against a strip of paper supported by a roller be- 

 neath, and slowly moved along near the edge of the table by clock-work, 

 after the manner usually employed in recording apparatus. A single 

 cup formed the galvanic element, and the circuit involving the electro- 

 magnet was closed and opened bj' means of a lever armed with a wire 

 fork which dipped into two mercury thimbles connected respectively 



* Two other projects of needle telegraph on Ampere's and Schilling's plan, belong- 

 ing to the latter part of 1837, require here only a passing notice. The first, that of a 

 Mr. Alexander, exhibited at the Society of Arts in Edinburgh, comprised thirty trans- 

 mitting keys with pins beneath, which on being depressed, closed the circuit by dip- 

 ping into a transverse mercury trough, and thirty galvanouieter needles at the 

 receiving station, each carrying a light paper screen, whicli just covered a painted 

 letter or mark when at resit, but which by dellection, exposed the desired letter to 

 view. By ingeniously employing luit a single wire lor the return jiath of each circuit, 

 the inventor recpured but thirty-one wires. (Mechanic.)!' McKjaziiic, London, Nov. 

 25, 1837, No. 746, vol. xxviii, pp. 1-^2, 123. ) Tlic second scheme, very similar to the 

 preceding, that of a Mr. Davy, exhibited at p]xerer Hall, in London, employed but 

 eight transmitting keys, each commanding tliree letters by different movements, and 

 at the receiving desk twenty-four letters on ground glass, illnniinate<l by a lamp, each 

 of which became visible only on the removal of a screen on the needle, placed behind 

 the glass. An observer reuuirked that in the desk "there is an apertnn; about IS 

 inches long and 3 or 4 inches wide, facing the eyes, perfectly dark. On this the sig- 

 nals appear as lumiiu^us letters, or combinations of letters, with a neatness and rapid- 

 ity almost magical." {Mcch. Mag. Feb. 3, 1838, No. 75(), vol. xxviii, \^\^. 295, 2".Ki.) 



tThis is a different instifutiou from the University of New York State, which has 

 mainly a supervisory function. 



