120 Early History of the Electric Telegraph. 



electric telegraph, published lately in the Electrician. 

 Although Wheatstone and Cooke succeeded, and Dr. Davy 

 did not, does not alter the fact that to the latter we are 

 decidedly indebted for discoveries which eventually resulted 

 in the perfection of both what are known as the needle and 

 Morse systems. To those interested in this subject, I may 

 state that copies of Dr. Davy's work and inventions can be 

 seen in the Electrician, Vol. XL, Nos. 8, 9, 10, and 11 of 

 this year. There is, however, one paragraph taken from his 

 letters and communications which is interesting and pro- 

 phetic. It is in a postscript to a letter to his father, dated 

 July, 1838. Speaking of a suggestion that had been made 

 to the effect that Government would scarcely allow such a 

 powerful instrument to be in the hands of individuals, he 

 says : — " I know very well the French Government would 

 not permit it except in their own hands. But though I think 

 our Government ought, and perhaps will, eventually take it 

 upon themselves as a branch of the post-office, yet I can 

 scarcely imagine that there would be such absurd illiberality 

 as to prohibit or appropriate it without compensation," 

 Again in 1838 Davy wrote : — " I cannot, however, avoid 

 looking at the system of electrical communication between 

 distant places, in a more enlarged way, as a system which 

 will one of these days become an especial element in social 

 intercourse. As railways are already doing, it will tend still 

 further to bring remote places in effect near together. If 

 the one may be said to diminish distance, the other may be 

 said to annihilate it altogether, being instantaneous." There 

 is a ring of prescience in these words, uttered as they 

 were forty-five years ago, before a mile of telegraph wire 

 had been erected, except the single mile he constructed 

 himself for experimental purposes in Regent's Park ; and 

 although, so far as is known, the idea of submarine commu- 

 nication was at that time scarcely dreamt of, Davy, in his 

 " Outline Description of His Improved Electrical Telegraph," 

 refers to and describes an insulated conductor or " cable" for 

 such a purpose. This Society will, I am sure, feel proud to 

 know that it may rank among its founders the name of 

 Edward Davy, the almost forgotten pioneer and inventor of 

 the electric telegraph, and at the eleventh hour to do what 

 honour to him it may be within its province and power 

 to do. 



