"I have, sir, read your dissertation upon my telegraph with great pleasure.... Has my succinct memoir on the telegraph, sent from here on the 12th of November, reached you, sir, and have you had the goodness to communicate it to the Institute?
"As the old wires that were pretty badly treated by many manipulations had really suffered therefrom, and as it was only to save time that I did not have them renewed before sending the apparatus, I wish that they could be replaced by ordinary clavichord wires wound with silk, inasmuch as the material in these is more durable than the copper of the old ones. Had I been able to flatter myself, sir, that you would have taken enough interest in this invention to be at the trouble of carrying it to Paris, I should certainly not have failed to effect in advance this small and necessary improvement, which, leaving time out of consideration, will require but a care as to details. For, in fact, I strongly apprehend that not only the brittleness of the copper wire, but also the violence that trials anterior and even foreign to present use have submitted these wires to, have possibly got the silk out of order, or used it up here and there, thus producing immediate contacts of metal and bringing about a premature closing of the galvanic chain, whence would result a total disarrangement of the questions. I truly regret, then, having (through being too jealous of time, which you yourself know so well the value of) sent you the instrument in such a state of imperfection, and I cannot do better than ask to have it sent back here in good order. Permit me, then, to ask you at once to please not let Prince de Neufchatel nor even His Majesty the Emperor see it until the said repair has been effected, either by myself or (if the sending back would seem to you to take too long) by some one of our skillful artists at Paris. According to my convictions, there is but this means of preventing its effect from failing us, even for ever. It is a true pleasure to see it so infallible and complete as it is in the new instrument of absolutely the same structure that I have had constructed for the Academy of Munich."
The telegraph, which doubtless was repaired at Paris, was returned to Munich only in May, 1811. The same year it was carried to Vienna by the Russian Count Potocki, whom Baron Schilling had made known to Soemmering, and who presented the apparatus to Emperor Francis the First, on the 1st of July of the same year. Another model was sent by Soemmering to his son William, then at Geneva, who showed it to Augustus Pictet, to De la Rive, and to some other savants.
Despite all such presentations no high personage showed himself disposed to aid Soemmering in making an extended application of his invention. The committee named by the Academy of Sciences, and in which figured Monge, Biot, and Carnot, does not seem to have made any report. The apparatus was considered of small importance alongside of that of Claude Chappe, and Napoleon himself, says Mr. Zoellner, treated the invention as a German vision. On another hand, Bavaria and Austria showed just as little enthusiasm; but Soemmering, reduced to his own resources, continued his experiments none the less on that account. On the 4th of February, 1812, he found it possible to telegraph to a distance of 4,000 feet, and on the 15th of March of the same year he operated his apparatus with complete success over a line 10,000 feet in length.
This was certainly making great progress; but it is certain that, even if Soemmering had not encountered universal indifference, his telegraph would not have been able to become practical, because of the large number of wires employed. A modification, however, would have enabled it to play a role during the twenty-five years which preceded the invention of more easily realizable systems. This modification is the one Salomon Christopher Schweigger proposed in an appendix to the memoir of Soemmering inserted by him in 1811[5] in his journal, the Polytechnisches Central—Blatt.
His proposition was that two unequal piles should be employed instead of one, so that first one and then the other, or even the two combined, should act; and, besides, that the number of wires should be reduced to two, in taking into consideration the time during which the gases were disengaged, as well as the interruptions of varying length, and to which would succeed the action, first of the larger, and then of the smaller pile. With these different modifications, it certainly would have been possible to employ but two wires, and to render the laying of the wires less costly.
After Soemmering, we may cite in the same category John Redman Coxe, who, according to a note inserted in 1810 in the Annals of Philosophy, proposed to utilize for telegraphy the decomposition of water or metallic salts. Coxe, however, does not seem to have ever made any experiments.
In 1814 John Robert Sharpe claimed likewise to have made experiments in telegraphy in 1813; and these in all probability were based upon electro-chemical action.
Upon the whole, the only important one of these electro-chemical apparatus is that of Soemmering. This marks an epoch in the history of electric telegraphy, but it was not capable of the extension that can be given the apparatus based upon Oersted's discovery.
