WILLIAM SIEMENS, F.R.S. 175 



ment, which is capable of revealing to the eye extremely slight 

 n iniiants of electric waves, readily transferred by means of a human 

 relay to ordinary recording instruments, and for the further intro- 

 duction of his syphon recording instrument by which those slight 

 currents are rendered in a written code. This latter instrument, 

 however, is of a somewhat delicate and complicated nature, and 

 it would be desirable if its place could be taken by a relay of 

 extreme sensitiveness, coupled with ordinary recording instruments 

 worked by local circuits, the accomplishment of which result we 

 may anticipate before long, considering the great improvements 

 that have been effected in the construction of polarized relays. 



Although this country has from the first taken a prominent 

 part in the invention and development of the electric telegraph, 

 and is still the seat of oceanic telegraphic enterprise, almost to the 

 exclusion of other countries, it has lately been asserted that other 

 countries, and especially the United States, are now taking the 

 lead in telegraphic improvement, and it behoves us to inquire 

 whether such an allegation is founded on fact, and if so whether 

 it is attributable to indolence on our part or to circumstances 

 beyond our control. Steady progress has, as I have shown, been 

 made by us up to the present day in the instruments and other 

 appliances used in telegraphy, but it cannot be denied that the 

 more startling innovations of recent days have chiefly emanated 

 from the United States, the only civilized country in which, as it 

 happens, internal telegraph communication is still in the hands of 

 private companies. Is it, it may be asked, this open competition 

 which has stimulated the American inventor to bring forth duplex 

 and quadruplex telegraphy, the telephone, and other innovations ? 

 I incline to the belief that the open competition for public favour 

 does act as a powerful stimulant to invention in the United 

 States, a stimulant which was equally active in this country in 

 producing a variety of novel instruments, at the time prior to the 

 purchase of the telegraphs by the Government. 



In frankly giving expression to this opinion, I do not mean 

 to call in question the wisdom of the policy which dictated the 

 purchase on public grounds of the telegraphs by Government. 

 Through it we have obtained a uniform and moderate tariff, an 

 extension of the telegraph system to minor stations (although the 

 number of stations opened in this country does not yet exceed that 



