38 PROFESSOR HENRY AND THE 



"wire?" If not, he proceeds to say: "Then no 

 " question could be entertained of the practicabil- 

 " ity and utility of the suggestion above adverted 

 "to. I was, therefore, induced to make the 

 " trial; but I found such a sensible diminution 

 " with only two hundred feet of wire, as at once 

 " to convince me of the impracticability of the 

 " scheme." 



Barlow's experiment was repeated by other scien- 

 tists in that and following years with a like result; 

 until it came to be accepted in the scientific world 

 that the telegraph could not be worked with the 

 newly-discovered electro-magnetism. So strongly 

 was this fixed in the opinion of the day, that as 

 late as 1837 thirteen years after the invention of 

 the electro -magnet by Sturgeon so eminent a sci- 

 entist and discoverer as Wheatstone, pronounced 

 the electro- magnetic telegraph impossible, on an 

 occasion when the very question was submitted to 

 him for decision by Cooke, at the suggestion of 

 Faraday himself. This fact is so important, and 

 so conclusive on the question now under examina- 

 tion, that I read Wheatstone's own account of it, 

 submitted by himself to arbitrators who were to 

 decide a controversy between himself and Cooke 

 as to their respective merits as inventors of 

 one form of the electro-magnetic telegraph. He 

 says: "I believe, but am not quite sure, that 



