LITTLE PUBLISHED AND PATENTED. 105 



art and mechanical talent of my partner Halske. This 

 is especially true of the numerous improvements of the 

 telegraphic contrivances and accessories which date 

 from that time, and which, thanks to their solid and 

 accurate elaboration in our workshop under Halske's 

 guidance, were rapidly adopted in technical telegraphy. 

 The great influence, which the firm of Siemens and 

 Halske has exercised in the development of telegraphy, 

 is mainly to be ascribed to the circumstance, that in 

 their work the executing hand has been that of the 

 accurate mechanician and no longer as formerly of 

 the clock-maker. 



For publication in scientific and technical journals 

 there was then no time: even patents were taken out 

 only in rare cases. There was then no German 

 patent, right, and in Prussia patents, given almost arbi- 

 trarily for from three to five years, were therefore 

 without practical value. The inventions and improve- 

 ments proceeding from us at that time therefore in the 

 majority of cases lack the attestation of their origin by 

 publication or patent. 



A conspicious illustration of this occurred a few 

 years ago. There turned up somebody in the United 

 States, who asserted that he was the inventor of under- 

 ground conductors, especially of those insulated by 

 gutta-percha, and who tried after the lapse of more 

 than a quarter of a century to obtain a patent for 

 the same, which threatened considerable loss to the 

 large American telegraph company. The company 

 sent a special commission headed by their director, 



