Page:Hamel Telegraph history 1859.djvu/51

49 finished in 1848,1 have, under Nos. 382, 383, and 628, found three wax models, made by Mr. Cooke during the winter mentioned. The one under No. 628 is marked: W. F. C., Dunelm.

In the beginning of March 1836, Mr. Cooke heard accidentally from John William Bizzo Hoppner, with whom he had formed an intimate acquaintance, because his relations lived in the Canton Berne, where Mr. Cooke had been with his own parents, that the professor of natural philosophy had an apparatus with which he could signalize from one room to another. This was Baron Schilling's telegraph, but Mr. Hoppner did not know it.

The professor was no other than the already mentioned Geheime Hofrath Muncke. He had in the upper story of the former Convent of Dominicans, where he gave his lectures, and where he also lived, suspended wires for telegraphing out of the Cabinet into the Auditory.

I have examined these localities; the rooms are now quite empty. When I was there the floors were used to dry hops, spread out on them. From the year 1860 to 1852, the house had served as a military barrack.

As Mr. Cooke was curious to see the telegraphing out of one room into another, Mr. Hoppner took him on