26
It may not be out of place here to remark, that the
worthy Abbé Moigno, in his “Traité de Télégraphie
électrique” of 1852, is in error, when he (page 64) says that
Schweigger had given the account of Soemmerring’s
telegraph, and made his remarks about the want of an alarum
in the year 1838, in the “Polytechnisches Central Blatt,”
which, in the Abbé’s opinion, Schweigger edited. This
journal was edited by Julius Ambrosius Hülsse, teacher of
mathematics, natural philosophy, and technology, at the
commercial school at Leipzig. It contains an article on
the electro-magnetic telegraph by Hülsse, which however
does not treat on the subject the Abbé refers to. Schweigger
had inserted the description of Soemmerring’s telegraph,
and made his remarks in the above cited “Journal für
Chemie und Physik,” not less than 27 years earlier, in 1811.
In 1838 Schweigger was no longer editor of any journal.
Baron Schilling, having made at Soemmerring’s the acquaintance of Schweigger, of course could not foresee that one day an invention of this gentleman, the multiplier, would enable him to make at St. Petersburg the first electro-magnetic telegraph.
Schweigger dined with Soemmerring and Schilling together at the so-called Museum, a sort of club, where
