Scientific Meeting in Germany. 281 



like the letter V, the following numbers, viz. :— 215, 36, 258, 112, 

 04, 01837, which, according to the dictionary, denoted "Success- 

 ful experiment with telegraph September 4, 1837." This cum- 

 brous p'rocess, of course, never came into actual use ; but notwith- 

 standing this, Morse boldly terms himself the inventor of elec- 

 tric telegraphy, and dates his invention from the year 1832. Nay 

 more, the Supreme Court of the United States pronounced a judg- 

 ment in 1854, finding that in this respect he had the priority of 

 all Europe. It may possibly be worth while to observe that Morse 

 is not, as seems to be commonly supposed, a Professor of Physics- 

 In 1835 he was appointed " Professor of the Literature of the Arts 

 of Design" in the educational institution termed the University of 

 New York ; but he never delivered a single lecture. The instru- 

 ment now known by the name of Morse's Telegraph was brought 

 to perfection by degrees, long subsequently to 1837, and after 

 Morse had made two more voyages to Europe, 



In November 1839, Cooke and Wheatstone executed in London 

 a contract of copartnery, and on the 12th December they gave in 

 their specification. Their process was founded essentially on the 

 same principle as Schilling's, only giving the needle a vertical in- 

 stead of a horizontal position. In August 1839 there were com- 

 pleted thirteen miles — namely, from Paddington to Drayton — of 

 a telegraphic line along the Great Western Railway, then in pro- 

 gress. Other extensions followed, and in 1845 Cooke suddenly 

 received commissions for a number of lines in various directions 

 throughout the country. The telegraph had received a sudden 

 accession of popularity from the aid it had afforded in the dis- 

 covery and apprehension of John Tawell the murderer. In 1846 

 Cooke succeeded in forming the Electric Telegraph Company, 

 which afterwards amalgamated with the International. Their 

 head station is at Lothbury, and down to the present clay most of 

 the apparatus employed by them are constructed on the principle 

 originally applied by Schilling, though now greatly improved by 

 Wheatstone. From these apparatus proceed 150 different wires 

 at the least, which run below the pavement to various localities. 



Thus it was Baron Schilling of Cannstadt who was the first man 

 by whom electro-magnetic telegraphy was really applied ; and it 

 was the telegraphic seed fromSt.Petersburgh which, after findingits 

 way vid Bonn and Heidelberg to England, struck its roots in 

 London — roots from which a tree has sprung up whose gigantic 

 branches, laden with golden fruit, now stretch and ramify over 

 land and sea. 



