106 CONSEQUENCES. 



""General" Eckert, to Berlin, to search for verification 

 by printed publications that in 1846 I had already 

 introduced wires with gutta-percha insulation. To 

 their written enquiry I was obliged to reply that 

 nothing was to be found in print on the subject, 

 but that the official records of the Staff Commission 

 and of the subsequent Telegraph Board contained proof 

 complete. 



This however did not suffice for the law - suit. 

 The Americans chose another very practical way to 

 procure printed information on the matter. They 

 advertised in several German papers that they would 

 pay a considerable sum for a description, printed in 

 1847. of the underground telegraph-lines laid on the 

 track of the Anhalt Railway. That succeeded. After 

 a few days there arrived from different places in Ger- 

 many newspaper-cuttings with the desired description. 

 The commission congratulated me as the undoubted 

 inventor of the gutta-percha conductors and travelled 

 home. 



The proposed publication of the results however 

 never came off, because, it is said, in the meantime 

 a compromise with the reputed inventor had brought 

 greater profit to the company. 



In Germany, after the construction of the lines to 

 Frankfort -on -the -Main and Cologne, the system of 

 underground communications had become the fashion. 

 Not only were the government telegraph lines from Berlin 

 to Hamburg, Breslau. Konigsberg and Dresden con- 

 structed underground with unprotected wires, buried at 



