References.—Phil. Mag., Vols. XXXIX. p. 396; XLIV. pp. 334, 401; XLV. pp. 154, 222, 308, 381; XLVI. p. 401; XLVII. pp. 167, 204; also Vol. XXXVII. pp. 227, 245, on Mr. Davy’s erroneous hypothesis of electro-chemical affinity, and Vols. XXII and XXIII of the Trans. Royal Irish Academy for Mr. Donovan’s papers relating to improvements in the construction of galvanometers, on galvanometric deflections, etc. etc.
A.D. 1812.—Zamboni (Giuseppe), Italian physicist, Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Verona Lyceum, makes known through his “Della pila elettrica a secco” an improved method of constructing dry piles. He dispenses entirely with the zinc plates of De Luc and employs only discs of paper having one side tinned and the other coated with a thin layer of black oxide of manganese pulverized in a mixture of flour and milk (“Note historique sur les piles sèches,” Annales de Chimie et de Physique, Vol. XI. p. 190).
His pile terminates in metallic plates, compressing the paper discs by means of silk ligatures, and the column is insulated by giving it a coating of either sulphur or shellac. In this apparatus the tinned surface is the positive element, the negative being the oxide of manganese, which replaces M. De Luc’s Dutch gilt paper. In the later forms of Zamboni’s pile the discs were formed of gilt and silvered paper pasted back to back. William Sturgeon remarks (“Scientific Researches,” Bury, 1850, p. 200) that the Zamboni piles are those which have been the most securely protected against the action of the ambient air and which alone have maintained their original electrical intensity.
References.—Larousse, “Dict. Univ.,” Vol. XV. p. 1452; K. F. Anton Von Schreibers in Gilbert’s Annalen, LV; Placidus Heinrich (Schweigger’s Journal, XV); Gustav Schübler, “Uber Zamboni’s Trockne Säule,” 1815–1816; G. F. Parrot (Gilbert’s Annalen, LV); K. C. F. Jäger in Gilbert’s Annalen, Vol. XLIX for 1815, pp. 47–66; De la Rive, “Treatise on Electricity,” Vol. II. p. 852; A. M. Ampère, Ann. de Chimie et de Phys., XXIX; John Farrar, “Elem. of Electricity,” etc., 1826, p. 179; Zamboni and Ambrogio Fusinieri, Ann. ... Reg. Lomb., Veneto, Vols. IV. pp. 128, 132; VI. pp. 31, 142, 143, 293; G. Resti-Ferrari, “Elettroscopio ... del Zamboni”; Ann. ... Reg. Lomb., Ven., Vols. II. p. 229; III. p. 290; “Verona Poligrafo” for 1831, p. 87; Mem. Soc. Ital., Vols. XXI, XXIII; Mem. dell’ Istit. Veneto, Vol. II. pp. 239, 251; G. A. Majocchi, Annali di Fisica, Vol. VIII. p. 14; “Comm. dell’ Ateneo di Brescia,” 1832, p. 38; Sturgeon’s “Researches,” Bury, 1850, pp. 147, 199, etc., for observations of A. de la Rive and Francis Watkins; Phil. Mag., Vol. XLV. pp. 67, 261; Ann. Ch. et Phys. for May 1816, Vol. II. pp. 76, etc., 82–87, and Bibl. Britan., Vol. LVII. p. 225; also Vol. LVIII. p. 111 of the O.S., Vol. II, N.S. for 1816, p. 21 as well as Vol. XL. p. 190; “Bibl. Univ.,” Bruxelles, 1831, Vol. XLVII. p. 183 (horloge électrique); “Edin. New Phil. Journal,” 1829, Vol. XXI. p. 357. See likewise the references at Hachette (A.D. 1803), Dyckhoff (A.D. 1804), Maréchaux (A.D. 1806), De Luc (A.D. 1809); the illustration and description of M. Palmieri’s dry pile in Sci. Am. Supp., Nos. 512, 519, and the accounts of investigations made more particularly by MM. Beetz, Belgrado, Burstyn, Crosse, Du Bois Reymond, De la Rive, D’Arsonval, Desruelles, Edelmann, Faraday, Gassiot, Gassner, Germain, Roul, Guérin, Haussman, Keiser, Schübler, Minotto, Pollak, Riess, Schmidt, Trouvé, Wagner, Watkins and Wolf.
A.D. 1812.—Schilling (Pawel Lwowitch), Baron (of Kannstadt), attaché to the Russian Embassy in Munich, and who had been two years before associated with S. T. Von Sömmering (Kuhn, p. 836), devises what he calls his “sub-aqueous galvanic conducting cord”—a copper wire insulated with a thin coating of india-rubber and varnish. This was laid both underground and under the sea, and, it is asserted that, by means of an arrangement of charcoal points, he was enabled to explode powder mines across the Neva, near St. Petersburg, as well as also across the Seine, during the occupation of Paris by the allied armies.
References.—Hamel, “Bull. Acad. Petersb.,” II and IV; also Wm. F. Cooke’s reprint, 1859, pp. 20–22; Fahie’s “History,” p. 309.
From the moment Schilling first saw the telegraph of Sömmering (Aug. 13, 1810) he made many experiments (Prime’s “Life of Morse,” p. 277) with the view of introducing it into Russia and finally took a model of it to St. Petersburg during the year 1812 (“Sc. Am. Suppl.,” No. 405). Hamel states (at p. 41 of Cooke’s reprint) that one of his contrivances was exhibited to the Emperor Alexander as early as 1825. Of this, Dr. E. N. Dickerson, in his Henry Memorial Address before Princeton College, gives the date as 1824. Be that as it may, it was only after his return from China in 1832 (two years after Sömmering’s death) that, following Ampère’s suggestion as to the availment of Oersted’s discovery, he submitted the apparatus which established for him the credit of having invented the electro-magnetic telegraph.
Many authors have erroneously described Schilling’s apparatus as consisting of a number of platinum wires insulated and bound together with a silken cord which put in motion thirty-six magnetic needles placed vertically in the centre of the multiplier by means of a species of key connecting with a galvanic pile. This account appeared at p. 43 of the “Journal des Travaux de l’Acad. de l’Industrie Française” for March 1839. The fact is that he employed but one magnetic needle and multiplier, with two leading wires, as proposed by Fechner, and was enabled by means of a combination of the deflections of the needle to the right and left to give all necessary signals for a complete correspondence by changing the poles of the battery at the ends of the wires. His call signal was given by a bell in connection with a clockwork, released by the deflection of a magnet.
References.—For a detailed explanation of the working of Schilling’s telegraph, J. S. T. Gehler’s “Physikalisches Wörterbuch” for 1838, Vol. IX. p. 111; Fahie’s “History,” pp. 310–313; “Sc. Am. Suppl.,” No. 405, p. 6467.
From the account of the telegraphic collection at the 1873 Exposition, published by Dr. Edward Zetzsche in the “Austellungblatte” of the Vienna “Neue Freie Presse,” the following is extracted: “Even after Prof. Oersted, of Copenhagen, had observed the deviation of a magnetic needle under the influence of the current, neither the proposition of Ampère, at Paris, in 1820 (of employing thirty needles and sixty wires) nor that of Fechner, at Leipzig, in 1829 (twenty-four needles and forty-eight wires) gave any impulse to telegraphy. Only in 1832 did the Russian Councillor of State, Baron Schilling de Kannstadt (who had seen the telegraph of his friend Sömmering, and had made it known in Russia), invent a new instrument with but five wires, which number he subsequently reduced to one. In it, the movements of the needle were rendered more perceptible by means of little discs of paper attached to a silk thread, holding the needle in suspension. This telegraph, it is true, was not put in application on a large scale, for Schilling died in 1837, but, on the 23rd of Sept. 1835, he had already brought out his apparatus at Bonn and at Frankfort-on-the-Main, where it was seen amongst other persons by Prof. Muncke, who doubtless constructed a similar one which he took with him to Heidelberg.”