Figure 2. — Alphabet of the Chappe telegraph. 

 From Beschreibung und Abbildung des Telegraphen, 

 Leipzig, 1795, pi. 3. 



in the first decade of the 19th century; and when 

 Austria invaded Bavaria this maneuver was reported 

 to Napoleon in Spain with such speed that he was 

 able to meet the invaders on the battlefield in four 

 days. Such rapid transmission of information led the 

 Bavarian king to desire a similar telegraph system; 



and so the prime minister of Bavaria asked the presi- 

 dent of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Prof. 

 Samuel T. Soemmerring, a well known anatomist, to 

 transmit this request to the academy. A month later, 

 in August 1809, Soemmerring himself acted on this 

 request by demonstrating a new kind of telegraph 

 (figs. 6, 7) to the academy.^ 



This first galvanic telegraph was based upon the 

 relatively recent discovery of the electrolysis of water. 

 By using 35 wires attached to 35 gold electrodes placed 

 in the bottom of a tank of water with glass walls, 

 Soemmerring could indicate any two letters of the 

 German alphabet (or any numeral) by connecting the 

 appropriate electrodes to a voltaic pile. An effer- 

 vescence at the two electrodes revealed the proper 

 pair, with the first symbol in the sequence indicated 

 by a greater amount of gas forming at the negative 

 electrode than at the positive electrode. By using such 

 a detector of the galvanic current, Soemmerring 

 found that he could transmit signals through 2,000 

 feet of wire. A call alarm was added to the Soem- 

 merring telegraph in 1810, and the following year 

 this apparatus was operated over a line 4,000 feet 

 long. By then the inventor had reduced the number 

 of wires in the cable by eliminating the numerals; 

 but he added a sign for "repeat" and one for a period, 

 which made 27 wires in all. Later, in 1812, Soem- 

 merring transmitted signals through 10,000 feet of 

 wire wound on reels. 



Soemmerring sent models of his electrolytic tele- 

 graph to Paris, Vienna, Geneva, and St. Petersburg. 

 The telegraph was presented to the Institut de France 

 and a committee was formed there to report on it, but 

 the equipment was returned to its inventor in a few 

 years without any formal action having been taken. 

 The Soemmerring telegraph may have been dem- 

 onstrated to Napoleon during the time it was in Paris; 

 at least Napoleon is reported to have rejected it with 

 the comment, "C'est une idee germanique." * 



Although Soemmerring' s invention was only a 

 "philosophical toy," since no tests were made of it 



3 T. S. Soemmerring, "Ueber einen elektrischen Tele- 

 graphen," Die koniglichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Munchen, 

 Denkschriften, 1810, vol. 2, pp. xxvii, 401-414; J. S. Schweigger, 

 "Uber Sommerring's elektrischen Telegraphen, I: Darstellung 

 der Sache mit den Worten ihres Erfinders," Journal fiir Chemie 

 und Physik (hereinafter cited as Schweigger's Journal), 1811, 

 vol. 2, pp. 217-231; "Bemerkungen iiber Herrn Prem. Lieut. 

 C. J. A. Pratorius Aufsatz; Uber die Unstatthaftigkeit der 



elektrischen Telegraphen fiir weite Fernen," Annalen der Physik, 

 1811, vol. 39, pp. 478-482; W. Soemmerring, "Historische 

 Notizen uber Samuel Thomas von Soemmerring's Erfindung 

 des ersten galvanisch-elektrischen Telegraphen," Physikalische 

 Verein zu Frankfurt am Main, Jahresbericht, 1857-1858, pp. 23-36; 

 J. Hamel, "Die Entstehung der galvanischen und elektromag- 

 netischen Telegraphic, "L'Academie imperiale des sciences de St. 

 PHersbourg, Bulletin, 1860, vol. 2, cols. 97-136, 298-303. , 

 * Schnabel, op. cit. (footnote 2), p. 168. 



276 



BULLETIN 228: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 



