242 SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL LABOURS TO 1860. 



adopted. But although this paper was published in 

 English and my communication to the Paris Academy 

 of 1850, in which my methods of detecting faults 

 were likewise in principle contained, in French, yet 

 later writers and inventors have only in a few cases 

 taken note of them, and have with slight variations 

 published as new discoveries the methods therein given. 

 I merely call attention to the point here, in order 

 that the history of the development of electrical 

 technology may not be permanently falsified. A recent 

 book, compiled with much industry, bearing the title 

 "Traite de telegraphic sousmarine' 7 by E. Wunschen- 

 dorff gives occasion for this remark. At the very 

 beginning of this work the original inventor of the 

 electric telegraph , the German Dr. Soemmering , is 

 designated as "Professeur russe", who is said to have 

 laid conducting wires under water near St. Petersburg 

 and in 1845 near Paris, and to have thereby become 

 the inventor of submarine telegraphy. While, for an 

 historical work, this is certainly a surprising confusion 

 of the German Dr. Soemmering with the German 

 Professor Jacobi living much later at St. Petersburg. 

 it is to be remarked that this and other projects of 

 submarine communication before the year 1847 are 

 only to be regarded as freaks of fancy, which could 

 not possibly lead to practicable underground communi- 

 cation. It was my conductors with a seamless gutta- 

 percha coating that first solved the problem of the 

 construction of underground and submarine lines, and 

 the wires laid by me for the mines in Kiel harbour, 



