1 6 THE SCIENTIFIC PAPERS OF 



ON THE PROGRESS OF THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH, 

 By C. W. SIEMENS,* C.E. 



THE growing importance of the electric telegraph, both from a 

 scientific and social point of view, and the circumstance of my 

 connection for a good many years with its practical development, 

 are the apologies I have to make for venturing to occupy the 

 attention of the Society this evening. 



The object which I have more particularly in view, is to trace 

 the gradual course of progress of this invention since the time of 

 its first appearance upon the stage, without pretending indeed to 

 establish any new historical facts or to decide upon the relative 

 merits of contending claimants to invention or discovery (although 

 I shall not willingly offend against the right of any one), but with 

 a view to establish more clearly our present position in the scale of 

 progression, and to point out with some degree of certainty the 

 direction in which we should travel in order to realise still 

 greater results, particularly the accomplishment of trans-oceanic 

 communication. 



When, little more than a century ago, Franklin, the father of 

 electrical science, ascertained that atmospheric electricity, which 

 manifested itself in the imposing form of thunder and lightning, 

 was identical with frictional electricity, he employed an apparatus 

 comprising an insulated metallic conductor, the electric machine, 

 the earth return circuit, and a receiving instrument, consisting of 

 a pair of cork balls, suspended by silk threads, which, upon being 

 electrified, struck against a pair of signal bells. This apparatus 

 comprised indeed all the elements required for the construction of 

 a modern electric telegraph. Nor was the idea of an electric 

 telegraph new, even in the days of Franklin, for we are informed 

 that as early as the year 1728, a pensioner of the Charter 

 House, named Stephen Gray, made electrical signals through a 

 suspended wire, 765 feet long. Yet a century of unceasing 

 efforts, by men of all civilised nations, including some of the 



* Excerpt Journal of the Society of Arts, Vol. VI. 1857-58, pp. 348-358. 



