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the idea of an electric telegraph. Dr. Hamel might have made a like, and much stronger claim in behalf of Dr. Soemmering, of Munich; for he proves him to have invented and made in 1809 the first galvanic telegraph on record; and it appears to have been this invention which stimulated Schilling to enter upon the same field of experiment. But neither Soemmering or Schilling succeeded, in the long period of twenty-seven years, between 1809 and 1836, in giving to their ideas a practical character; and no part of the inventions or apparatus of either of those pioneers in electric telegraphy was ever employed in England.
As the sight of Soemmering’s telegraph of 1809 stimulated Baron Schilling to invent his needle telegraph, between 1825 and 1830; so the sight of a model of Schilling’s telegraph, in February 1836, stimulated another mind to devote itself to the same object. But it is submitted that the facts which Dr. Hamel has collected with so much patient research, and narrated with such clearness and accuracy, do not at all bear out his claim on behalf of Baron Schilling.
He describes (at page 40), a telegraphic instrument invented by Baron Schilling, about 1830; and tracks
