SKETCH OF WERNER VON SIEMENS. 835 



Having communicated with. General Oetzel, the chief of the 

 military telegraphic service, he was invited to assist in the sub- 

 stitution of electric for optical telegraphs. He gained the confi- 

 dence of the general and of his son-in-law, Prof. Dove, and was 

 commissioned to carry out his own plans. The lines were to be 

 put underground, and there was difficulty about finding satisfac- 

 tory insulating material. Wilhelm Siemens had sent him some 

 specimens of gutta percha from London as a curiosity. It was 

 found eminently adapted to the purpose of an insulator. With a 

 press supplied by Halske, the wires were successfully covered, 

 and the lines were established with Siemens's instruments. In Oc- 

 tober, 1847, the firm of Siemens and Halske was formed, which, 

 beginning in a rear building with a modest capital, was destined 

 to ramify till it had branches in several of the capitals of Europe, 

 and became prominent in the construction of Continental tele- 

 graphs and the world's cable lines. 



The revolutionary movements of 1848 brought the extension 

 of telegraphic enterprises to a temporary halt. The Siemens- 

 Halske establishment, nevertheless, went on with its work, though 

 it had no orders. In a short time Siemens was commissioned to 

 lay submarine electric batteries in the harbor of Kiel for protec- 

 tion against an apprehended attack by Danish vessels. Having 

 assured the perfect working of his mines from the shore, he col- 

 lected a band of volunteers in the city and surprised the post of 

 Friedrichsort, at the entrance to the harbor, under the protection 

 of which, it being held by the Danes, the Danish fleet might have 

 approached alarmingly near to Kiel without being molested. As 

 commandant of Friedrichsort, he built the fortifications for the 

 protection of the harbor of Eckernforde, which became very 

 famous the next year in connection with the rout of the Danish 

 squadron. 



Siemens was next commissioned to lay an underground tele- 

 graph from Berlin to Frankfort-on-the-Main where the German 

 National Assembly met. The transmission of the result of an 

 election in the winter of 1879 to Berlin, within the hour, gave the 

 line great repute, and Siemens was employed to construct another 

 line from Berlin to Cologne and Verviers, on the Prussian front- 

 ier. In this enterprise he had the assistance of William Meyer, 

 a man skilled in organization. Many difficulties incident to the 

 imperfections of an art still in a crude condition are described as 

 having been encountered in executing these works. The con- 

 structors were sorely embarrassed, in crossing the Elbe and the 

 .Rhine, to find means for protecting the wires against dragging 

 by ships' anchors. The wire across the Rhine was inclosed in a 

 wrought-iron tube so well that, when it was taken up several 

 years afterward, a number of anchors were found hanging from 



