DEVELOPMENT OF THE TELEGRAPH 



telegraphy, and, becoming familiar with Oersted's 

 discovery a few years later, invented a telegraph and 

 formulated a code whereby messages could be read from 

 a needle moving right and left as the current passed 

 through a coil surrounding it. This telegraph, which 

 was first made in 1825, aroused great popular interest, 

 and Schilling received the support of some of the lead- 

 ing men of Russia, including Czar Nicholas himself. 



One of Schilling's models of his telegraph is still in 

 existence in Russia, this particular one having, in place of 

 a single needle, five needles worked by five wires. It was 

 this or a similar instrument, which the inventor, encour- 

 aged and assisted by the great men of Russia, had brought 

 to a stage of almost practical perfection when the 

 experiments were cut short by his death. A vital defect 

 in his system of telegraphy was the fact that the action 

 of the current upon the needle at any very great dis- 

 tance was weak and uncertain. 



But while Schilling, utilizing the great discovery of 

 Oersted, was still experimenting with his telegraph, 

 Michael Faraday had made the equally important dis- 

 covery of electromagnetic induction. By this discovery, 

 which was made in 1831, it was found that a piece of 

 iron could be made into a magnet by winding a coil of 

 insulated wire about it, and passing a current of elec- 

 tricity through the coil. The magnetization could be 

 produced instantaneously by closing the circuit, and 

 destroyed with equal rapidity by breaking it. The 

 power of such a magnet was practically unlimited, the 

 number of coils about the iron proportionately increasing 

 the strength of the magnet. 



[15] 



