I then entered the royal reception-room, and was presented to the King. He was a remarkably tall person, dressed in military costume, having a very peculiar expression of countenance, which I was at a loss how immediately to interpret. The King invited me to sit down, and I followed his Majesty to a large bay-window, where we immediately sat down on two stools opposite to each other.
The King expressed his satisfaction that I had come from so considerable a distance to assist at the councils of the men of science then assembling in his own capital. Of course I replied by remarking that the advancement of the sciences contributed to the material as well as to the intellectual progress of every nation, and that when a sovereign, intimately convinced of this truth, took measures for the extension and diffusion of knowledge, it was the duty of all those engaged in its cultivation respectfully to assist as far as their individual circumstances permitted.
After a short pause, the King put some question which I do not remember, except that it was one of the conventional topics of society: perhaps it might have related to my journey. I now felt that unless I could raise some question of curiosity in his Majesty’s mind, to overcome his natural reserve, the interview would soon terminate precisely in the manner predicted. I therefore, in replying to this question, {301} contrived to introduce a remarkable fact relative to the electric telegraph. I soon perceived that it had taken hold of the King’s imagination, and the next question confirmed my view. “For what purposes,” said the King, “will the electric telegraph become useful?”
I must here request the reader to go back in his memory to the state of our knowledge in 1840, when electricity and other subjects, now of every-day application, were just commencing their then eccentric but now regulated course.
〈THEORY OF STORMS—ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.〉
The King put the very question I had wished. Carefully observing his countenance, I felt that I was advancing in a tract in which he was interested. At each pause the proper question was suggested, and at last I pointed out the probability that, by means of the electric telegraphs, his Majesty’s fleet might receive warning of coming storms. This led to the new theory of storms, about which the king was very curious. By degrees I endeavoured to make it clear. I cited, as an illustration, a storm which had occurred but a short time before I left England. The damage done by it at Liverpool was very great, and at Glasgow immense. On one large property in the west coast of Scotland thirty thousand timber-trees had been thrown down.
I then explained that by subsequent inquiries it had been found that this storm arose from the overlapping of two circular whirlwinds, one of them coming up from the Atlantic bodily at the rate of twenty miles an hour, the other passing at the rate of twelve miles an hour, in a north-westerly direction, to Glasgow, where they coalesced, and destroyed property to the value of above half a million sterling. I added that if there had been electric communication between Genoa and a few other places the people of Glasgow might have had information of one of those storms twenty-four hours previously to its {302} arrival, and could then have taken effective measures for the security of much of their shipping.
〈THE PHILOSOPHER TROUBLED WITH A CONSCIENCE.〉
During this conversation I had felt rather uneasy at occupying the king’s time so long when several of his own ministers were waiting in his ante-room for an audience, perhaps upon important business. Urged by this truly conscientious motive, I committed a gaucherie of the deepest water—I half rose from my stool to take leave of his Majesty. The King, as well he might, lifted up both his hands and then expressed the greatest interest in the continuance of the subject.
After a conversation of about five-and-twenty minutes the King rose, and, walking with me to the door, I made my bow. The King then held out his hand.