Page:Hamel Telegraph history 1859.djvu/18



On the 6th of April, 1811, a renowned warrior, General Erasmus Deroy, who in the following year, on the 18th of August, was mortally wounded near Polotzk, in Russia, where he died and lies buried, came accompanied not only by two aides-de-camp, but by several foreign Ministers, to see the action of Soemmerring’s telegraph.

On the 7th of May, Baron Schilling introduced to Soemmerring Baron Comeau, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the service of Bavaria, who repeated his visit on the following day, to get a thorough knowledge of the telegraph. I mention Baron Comeau’s visit principally for the reason that he subsequently gave Soemmerring the first account of Schilling’s operations with a subaqueous galvanic conducting cord through the river Neva, at St. Petersburg, in the year 1812.

On the 14th of May, Baron Schilling introduced to Soemmerring Count Jeroslas Potozki, a Russian Colonel