WILLIAM SIEMENS, F.R.S. 41 



universal adoption desirable. With reference to the general use 

 of the double-needle instrument in England, he thought this was 

 not the result of any prejudice, but a consequence of the intrinsic 

 merits of the instrument itself, which were such that when 

 persons had once become familiar with its use, nothing but 

 rumpulsion would induce them to resort to any other. The 

 Kl iv trie Telegraph Company were fully alive to the advantages of 

 the Morse instrument, and had employed it extensively on all 

 their principal commercial circuits for many years, and it was in 

 daily operation on thousands of miles of telegraph in this countiy. 

 The needle instrument had, however, such advantages over the 

 Morse in simplicity, in rapidity of transmission, and in facility of 

 use, that they had in vain endeavoured to bring the Morse 

 instrument into extensive use on railways. Nothing but the 

 constant use of the two instruments side by side could enable a 

 person to form a correct estimate of their relative value ; and he 

 could assure those who were in the habit of condemning the 

 double-needle instrument on purely theoretical considerations, that 

 they were, from imperfect information, falling into a very great 

 error. 



Mr. E. Highton said he objected to the statement in the paper 

 that the change from magneto-electricity to electricity developed 

 directly by a voltaic battery, was a step in a retrograde direction. 

 Every form of magneto-electric machines hitherto used in Great 

 Britain and Ireland had failed ; he instanced the instruments of 

 Professor Wheatstone and Mr. Henley instruments which, he 

 believed, showed inventive talent of the highest order, but they 

 were not commercially comparable with other plans when voltaic 

 electricity was employed. The system of underground wires, 

 as recommended by Mr. Werner Siemens, in Prussia, had proved 

 a fatal failure, and nearly the whole of the capital invested therein 

 by the Government had been lost. He preferred the use of 

 electricity produced by a battery and an electro-magnet, to that 

 produced by a permanent magnet, inasmuch as the one could be 

 increased to any extent, according to the weather, whilst the other 

 could not. He objected to the statement in Mr. Siemens's paper 

 as to Messrs. Newall & Co. being the patentees of the submarine 

 telegraph as now used. The fact was, there was no practical 

 method of making submarine cables published, prior to his own 



