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WHEATSTONE, CHARLES, F.R.S. 



W1IEATSTONE, CHARLES, F.R.S. 



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and impressed with a strong conviction that so great an object might 

 be practically attained by means of electricity, Mr. Cooke imme- 

 diately directed his attention to its adaptation to a practical system of 

 telegraphing ; and, giving up the profession in which he was engaged, 

 ho from that hour devoted himself exclusively to the realisation of 

 that object He came to England in April 1836 (reaching London 

 on the 22nd,) in order to perfect his plans and instruments. On the 

 27th of February of the following year, 1837, while engaged in com- 

 pleting a set of instruments for an intended experimental application 

 of his telegraph on the Liverpool and Manchester Hallway, he became 

 acquainted, through the introduction of Dr. lloget, [RooET, PETER 

 MARK] with Professor Wheatstone, who had for several years given 

 much attention to the subject of transmitting intelligence by electri- 

 city, and had made several discoveries of the highest importance con- 

 nected with this subject. Among these were his determination 

 (which will be again referred to in this article) of the velocity of 

 electricity, when passing, under certain circumstances, through a 

 copper wire j his experiments, in which the deflection of magnetic 

 needles, the decomposition of water, and other voltaic and magneto- 

 electric effects, were produced through greater lengths of wire than 

 had ever before been experimented upon ; and his original method of 

 converting a few wires into a considerable number of circuits, so that 

 they might transmit the greatest number of signals which can be 

 transmitted by a given number of wires, by the deflection of magnetic 

 needles. 



Mr. Charles Coles Adley, in a paper read before the Institution of 

 Civil Engineers in London, on the 2nd of March 1852, records, that 

 " no less than four names stand em'olled 'on the annals of the year 

 1837 as claimants for the honour of having invented the Electric 

 Telegraph as a practicable reality. These are Wheatstone, Alexander, 

 Steiuheil, and Morse." There " can be no question however," he con- 

 tinues, " of Wheatstone' s priority in date over Alexander and Morse. 

 Stcinheil had repeated Gauss and Weber's experiments before that 

 date, but he did not produce any invention of his own until long sub- 

 sequently." In June 1836, Professor Wheatstone, in a course of 

 lectures delivered at King's College, had exhibited his experiments on 

 the velocity of electricity, with a lengthened circuit of nearly four 

 miles of copper-wire, and had given a sketch of the means by which 

 he proposed to convert the apparatus into an electrical telegraph. A 

 statement to this effect was published in the ' Magazine of Popular 

 Science' oil the 1st of March 1837. In the following May, Messrs. 

 Wheatstone and Cooke took out their first patent, which was sealed 

 on the 12th of June, "for improvements in giving signals and sound- 

 ing alarums, in distant places, by means of electric currents trans- 

 mitted through metallic circuits." The telegraph thus patented 

 originally consisted of five needles, which were soon afterwards 

 reduced to two. The first line of electric telegraph laid down for 

 useful purposes was constructed, under this patent, in the following 

 year, upon the Blackwall Railway. Five other patents were subse- 

 quently taken out by the same patentees, either individually, or in 

 co-operation, for various improvements on the original plan. The 

 electro-magnetic alarum was first patented by them in 1837. 



The terms of partnership of the patentees were more exactly 

 defined and confirmed in November of that year, by a partnership 

 deed, which vested in Mr. Cooke, as the originator of the undertaking, 

 the exclusive management of the invention, in Great Britain, Ireland, 

 and the Colonies, with the exclusive engineering department, as be- 

 tween themselves, and all the benefit arising from the laying down of 

 the lines, and the manufacture of the instruments. As partners 

 standing on a perfect equality, Messrs. Cooke and Wheatstone were to 

 divide equally all proceeds arising from the granting of licences, or 

 from the sale of the patent rights ; a per-centage being first payable to 

 Mr. Cooke as manager. Professor Wheatstone retained an equal voice 

 with Mr. Cooke in selecting and modifying the forms of the telegraphic 

 instruments, and both parties pledged themselves to impart to each 

 other, for their equal and mutual benefit, all improvements of what- 

 ever kind, which they might become possessed of, connected with the 

 giving of signals or the sounding of alarums by means of electricity. 



For some years after the formation of the partnership the under- 

 taking rapidly progressed, under the constant and equally successful 

 exertions of the parties in their distinct departments, until it attained the 

 character of a simple and practical system, worked out scientifically on 

 the sure basis of actual experience. In the words of the late Sir M. I. 

 Brunei [BRUNEL, SIR MARK ISAMBARD] and Professor Daniell [DANIELL, 

 JOHN FREDERICK], wliose apportionment and history of the relative 

 claims and merits of Professor Wheatstone and Mr. Cooke, in respect 

 of the electric telegraph, we have here with some additions adopted, 

 " Whilst Mr. Cooke is entitled to stand alone as the gentleman to whom 

 this country is indebted for having practically introduced and carried 

 out the electric telegraph as an useful undertaking, promising to be 

 a work of national importance, and Professor Wheatstone is acknow- 

 ledged as the scientific man whose profound and successful researches 

 had already prepared the public to receive it as a project capable of 

 practical application, it is to the united labours of two gentlemen so 

 well qualified for mutual assistance that we must attribute the rapid 

 progress which this important invention has made during the few 

 years since they have been associated." These statements were made in 



841. With the commercial and the political extension which electric 



telegraphy, in various forms, has made during the seventeen years that 

 have succeeded, in Great Britain, on the continent of Europe, in 

 America, and in India, beneath the ocean, and between Africa and 

 Europe, most of our readers have been made familiar by the daily 

 sources of contemporary history, or by actual experience. It is 

 understood that the principal subject <Jf this article has reaped a sub- 

 stantial pecuniary reward for his share in the benefit which he has 

 been thus instrumental in conferring upon mankind. 



Mr. Adley's paper already referred to, and which has been one of 

 our authorities for this article, is entitled ' The Electric Telegraph ; 

 its history, theory, and practical applications.' ' Minutes of Proceedings 

 of the Institution of Civil Engineers,' vol. xi. pp. 299-329 ; to which 

 succeeds ' On the Electric Telegraph, and the principal improvements 

 in its Construction. By Frederick Richard Window, Assoc. Inst. C.E.' 

 Ib. pp. 329-361. These papers were both read on the 2nd of March 

 1852, and the discussion of them was continued through the two 

 following meetings of the Institution, the minutes of it occuping 27 

 pages of the printed Proceedings. 



The principle of magneto-electric induction treated of by Faraday, 

 was applied to telegraphic purposes by Professor Wheatstone, iu his 

 patent of 1840. There are several important secondary applications of 

 the electric telegraph. One of them, first described by Professor 

 Wheatstone, in a paper communicated to the Royal Society on the 

 26th of November 1840, is to the regulation of clocks, a series of 

 which are worked together by an electric current. Another is an 

 apparatus invented by him communicated to the British Association in 

 June 1842, for registering the indications of the thermometer, baro- 

 meter, &c. ; on the actual use of which he reported in the following 

 year. A third most important application, also first proposed by 

 Professor Wheatstone, and announced in the 'Bulletins of the Royal 

 Academy of Sciences of Brussels,' October 1840, is the registration 

 and transmission of transit observations in astronomy. Another is the 

 electro-magnetic chronoscope, announced in the same work, for the 

 measurement of extremely short intervals of time. 



Other papers by Professor Wheatstone, communicated to the Royal 

 Society, and together with those already noticed, inserted in the 

 ' Philosophical Transactions,' or in the ' Proceedings,' are the following : 

 An account of several new instruments and processes for determining 

 the constants of a voltaic circuit, founded on Ohm's theory ; Note 

 relating to M. Foucault's new mechanical proof of the rotation of the 

 earth; the Bakerian Lecture for 1852, being Part II. of Contributions 

 to the Physiology of Vision, and on Binocular Vision, in continuation ; 

 on Fessel's gyroscope ; on the formation of powers from arithmetical 

 progressions ; account of some experiments made with the submarine 

 cable, &c. ; on the position of aluminum in the voltaic series. The 

 royal medal of the Society, for 1840, was awarded to him, primarily 

 for his researches in double vision, but also, in the words of the 

 President (the late Marquis of Northampton) in presenting the medal 

 " for the science and ingenuity by which he had measured electrical 

 velocity, and by which he had also turned his acquaintance with 

 galvanism to the most important practical purposes." The royal medal 

 was again awarded to him in 1843, for his paper on processes for 

 determining the constants of a voltaic circuit, mentioned above. 



As Professor Wheatstone's experiments on the velocity of electricity 

 have been mentioned several times in this article, it is requisite to 

 observe that Professor Faraday, with his peculiar mastery of electric 

 science, had inferred (as is known to the present writer) shortly after 

 their publication, that the velocity of electrical discharge through the 

 same wire might be greatly varied by the amount and disposition of 

 the necessaiy previous induction. In 1838 he published this in his 

 well-known ' Experimental Researches.' Having afterwards fully veri- 

 fied this influence by the electric telegraph, and experiments by 

 various inquirers having proved that the difference of velocity in 

 copper-wire might even be as a hundred to one, at the first evening 

 meeting of the Royal Institution in 1854, he returned to the subject, 

 and fully explained the causes of variation. An explicit view of the 

 actual state of science on this interesting subject, has been given by 

 Professor De la Rive, in his Treatise on Electricity lately published, 

 translated by Mr. Charles Vincent AValker, F.R.S., superintendent tele- 

 grapher of the South-Eastern Railway. A final expression for tho 

 velocity of electricity, it would appear, has not yet been obtained ; nor 

 has it been shown in what the primd facie difference between the 

 mode of propagation of electricity, and that of the radiant forces, such 

 as light, heat, &c., really consists. 



Professor Wheatstone was one of the jurors of the Paris Universal 

 Exhibition of 1855, in the class for "heat, light, and electricity ; ' 

 on which occasion he was appointed by the Emperor Napoleon III. a 

 knight of the Legion of Honour, " for iris application of the electric 

 telegraph." He is also a correspondent of the French Institute of 

 Sciences, and a foreign or an honorary member of the principal 

 academies of science in Europe. 



At King's College, we believe, like other titular professors, he has 

 not taken any part in the routine of academic instruction ; but he has 

 occasionally lectured, as we have seen, on special subjects related to 

 his own researches ; giving .also to his colleagues the advantageous aid 

 of his peculiar knowledge and talent, and to the college the benefit 

 of his philosophical reputation. In two previous articles [MILLER 

 WILLIAM ALLEN, and SMITH, WILLIAM,] the researches which con'. 



