68 ADDRESS TO THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION, 1881. 



poses ; it was but a few years previously, in 1819, that 

 Oersted had discovered the deflective action of the 

 current on the magnetic needle, that Ampere had laid 

 the foundation of electro -dynamics, that Schweizzer had 

 devised the electric coil or multiplier, and that Sturgeon 

 had constructed the first electro-magnet. It was in 

 1831 that Faraday, the prince of pure experimentalists, 

 announced his discoveries of voltaic induction and 

 magneto-electricity, which with the other three dis- 

 coveries constitute the principles of nearly all the 

 telegraph instruments now in use ; and in 1834 our 

 knowledge of the nature of the electric current had been 

 much advanced by the interesting experiment of Sir 

 Charles Wheatstone, proving the velocity of the current 

 in a metallic conductor to approach that of the wave of 

 light. 



Practical applications of these discoveries were not 

 long in coming to the fore, and the first telegraph line 

 on the Great Western Railway from Paddington to 

 West Dray ton was set up in 1838. In America, Morse 

 is said to have commenced the development of his re- 

 cording instrument between the years 1832 and 1837, 

 while Steinheil, in Germany, during the same period was 

 engaged upon his somewhat super-refined ink-recorder, 

 using for the first time the earth for completing the 

 return circuit ; whereas in this country Cooke and 

 Wheatstone, by adopting the more simple device of 

 the double-needle instrument, were the first to make 

 the electric telegraph a practical institution. Contem- 

 poraneously with, or immediately succeeding these 

 pioneers, we find in this country Alexander Bain, 

 Breguet in France, Schilling in Russia, and Werner 



