502 



NA TURE 



{April 7*], 1876 



possesses, is, without any doubt, Mr. Wheatstone. This 

 illustrious philosopher was led to this beautiful result by 

 the researches that he had made in 1834 upon the velocity 

 of electricity — researches in which he had employed insu- 

 lated wires of several miles in length, and which had 

 demonstrated to him the possibility of making voltaic 

 and magneto-electric currents pass through circuits of 

 this length. It was in 1837, in the month of June, that 

 Mr. Wheatstone took out his first patent. He first em- 

 ployed five conducting-wires, between two distant stations, 

 acting upon five magnetised needles, the movements of 

 which, being combined two and two, were enabled to pro- 

 duce several different signs. Mr. Wheatstone, at this time, 

 entered into partnership with Mr. Cooke, who had like- 

 wise devised an ingenious telegraphic apparatus founded 

 upon the same principles. The English philosophers, 

 from the very first, had added to the telegraph — properly 

 so called — an apparatus intended to call the attention of 

 the observers, and designated under the name of Alarm. 

 . . . The principle upon which this alarm is founded 

 includes an immense number of applications, for it enables 

 man to put in action — at any distance whatever — all the 

 forces of mechanics, in an instantaneous manner. Indeed, 

 more recently. Mr. Wheatstone applied it to the construc- 

 tion of his dial telegraph ; and it is the same principle 

 which serves as the basis of Morse's telegraph, invented 

 at nearly the same period."— Z?^ /a Rive, Part VII. 

 Chap. I. 



We may repeat here a fact which does not appear 

 to be generally known or recognised, that Wheatstone 

 was the first suggester and worker at submarine tele- 

 graphy. From documents before us we learn that so 

 early as 1837 he was thinking much on and was greatly 

 interested in the subject ; and in February, 1840, he stated 

 his opinion before a Select Committee of the House of 

 Commons as to the practicability of estabhshing electric 

 communication by means of a cable between Dover and 

 Calais. 



Wheatstone's applications of electricity were almost 

 innumerable. His electric clocks are well known ; various 

 electric registers were invented by him, one especially for 

 recording a variety of meteorological data, and another, 

 which acts as a chronoscope to register the velocity of a 

 bullet. Indeed, his ingenuity was marvellous, and, as we 

 have already hinted, there are doubtless many useful in- 

 ventions due to him, of which he has reaped neither 

 the profit nor the credit. 



Wheatstone received many " honours " during his life- 

 time. He was made a Fellow of the Eoyal Society in 

 1836, in 1868 he was knighted, in 1873 he was elected a 

 foreign member of the Paris Academy, and had altogether 

 upwards of thirty foreign distinctions. The following 

 estimate of Wheatstone and of his contributions to 

 science is from the pen of Signor Paul Volpicelli, the 

 distinguished Italian electrician. 



The Academy of Sciences of the Institute of France, 

 at its s^atice of October 18, 1875, was informed by 

 the perpeiua^ secretary, M. Dumas, that the illustrious 

 English physicist, Charles Wheatstone, was seriously ill 

 in Paris at tne Hotel du Louvre. By the 17th of the 

 month, however, fears for the safety of that savant were 

 well nigh vanished, and it was believed that he would 



soon be completely restored to health. The hope un- 

 happily proved fallacious ; an aggravation having occurred 

 in the pneumonitis, which was thought to have been 

 overcome, carried olf that distinguished physicist on the 

 19th of the month from his friends and from science. 



Our Reale Academia dei Lincei was profoundly afflicted 

 at this irreparable loss, which deprived it for ever of one 

 of the most celebrated of its foreign correspondents, who 

 was and will continue to be one of the proudest and most 

 pure scientific glories, not only of England, but of the 

 whole civilised world, since science does not know nation- 

 alities, but belongs to all countries. 



The brilliant Wheatstone inevitably became possessed 

 of all those honours which science is wont to confer on 

 her eminent votaries, and in 1875 he obtained from the 

 Academy of Sciences of the Institute of France a title of the 

 highest distinction, that, viz., of one of the eight Foreign 

 Associates. Among the cultivators of physics the name 

 of Wheatstone will never be forgotten ; neither the pre- 

 sent nor the future can forget his rare penetration, the 

 inventiveness of his genius, his discoveries, and the un- 

 common ability with which he reproduced in m.achincs 

 the phenomena of nature. 



His name will be as that of a star to whose light will 

 turn the minds of those who desire to comprehend the 

 progress of physical doctrine. In doing honour to the 

 memory of this our illustrious foreign correspondent, it 

 will be best to record his scientific labours, which are all 

 of the highest interest. 



In the present short obituary notice we shall merely 

 give a rapid sketch of the principal physical researches of 

 the illustrious deceased. 



Our countryman, Leonardo da Vinci, in 1500, or there- 

 abouts, conceived and was the first to affirm, that from a 

 picture it was not possible to obtain the effect of relief. 

 But Wheatstone, reflecting profoundly in 1838, on the 

 physiology of vision, invented the catoptric stereoscope, 

 with which he philosophically solved the problem of the 

 optical and virtual production of relief. 



This instrument was a converted dioptric of the father 

 of modern optics, the distinguished Brewster, and at the 

 same time was more simple, more popular, and more 

 elegant. Continuing to study the physiology of vision, 

 Wheatstone succeeded in constructing the diaphragmatic 

 stereoscope, i.e. v/ithout mirror and without lenses, but 

 merely with a diaphragm. With this instrument there 

 could be received coexistently on the retina three images, 

 two, viz., one photographic, and one in relief, produced 

 from the first two. 



The diaphragmatic stereoscope manifested, better than 

 the two others, the physiology of vision ; it was published 

 in the " Atti dell. Academia Pontificia dei Nuovi Lincei," 

 t. vii. p. 219, and in the work entitled " Monographic du 

 Stereoscope," by H. De la Blanchfere (Paris, 1861), as 

 also in the Cosmos. 



The use of the stereoscope, whether catoptric, dioptric, 

 or diaphragmatic, would have remained pretty restricted, 

 if photography had not come in to greatly extend that 

 use, in its application to industries, arts, and sciences. 



When one undertakes to study the hyperoptics, it often 

 happens that the vibrations of the molecules of ether, 

 constituting a luminous wave, are found difficult to con- 

 ceive, 



