Mr\F. H. 



1880.1 iVr.W. p. Prccce on Wlicatshme. 297 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING. 

 Friday, February 13, 1880. 



Warren De La Rue, Esq. D.C.L. F.R.S. Secretary and Vice-President, 



in the Chair. 



W. H. Preece, Esq. C.E. M.R.I. 

 The Telegraphic Achievements of WJieatstone. 



Dr. Johnson said of Oliver Goldsmith — 



•' Xiliil erat quod nou teti,<<it ; 

 Nihil quod tetigit uon oniavit." 



Some are inclined to think that the great literary giant of one 

 hundred years ago thought more of the roundness of his periods than 

 of the facts they clothed, but a greater man than Samuel Johnson said 

 of a greater man than Oliver Goldsmith — in fact, our well-beloved 

 Faraday said of Charles Wheatstone that there was nothing he touched 

 that he did not adorn. 



Wheatstone's familiar form was very well known to the old 

 habitues of this theatre. Whenever either of his favourite subjects, 

 light, sound, or electricity, was under discussion, his little, active, 

 nervous and intelligent form was present, eagerly listening to the 

 lecturer. He was no lecturer himself, yet no one was more voluble 

 in conversation. At explaining any object of his own invention, 

 or any apparatus before him, no one was more apt, but when he 

 appeared before an audience and became the focus of a thousand eyes, 

 all his volubility fled, and left him without a particle of that peculiar 

 quality which enables an individual with confidence to come before a 

 critical audience, such as is represented by the members of this 

 Institution, to develop scientific facts or describe ajiparatus. This 

 defect proved fortunate, for it was the cause of Wheatstone obtaining 

 the aid of the greatest lecturer of the age, and the annals of this 

 Institution bear record of many a Friday evening being occujned 

 by Faraday expounding the "beautiful developments," as he called 

 them, of Wheatstone. 



Up to the year 1834 Wheatstone devoted his time almost entirely 

 to the investigation of soimd. In that year he was appointed 



