Page:Hamel Telegraph history 1859.djvu/53

51 He wrote: "Having returned from India on leave of absence, on account of the state of my health, and afterwards resigned my commission, I was studying anatomy and modelling my dissections, at Heidelberg, when, in March 1836, I happened to witness one of the common applications of electricity to telegraphic experiments, which had been repeated without practical result for half a century. Perceiving that the agent employed might be made available to purposes of higher utility than the illustration of a lecture, I at once abandoned my anatomical pursuits, and applied my whole energies to the invention of a practical Electric Telegraph."

Who could, on reading this, have discovered that Mr. Cooke had seen experiments performed with a copy from the electro-magnetic telegraph made by Baron Schilling at St. Petersburg, and brought by him, six months before that time, to Bonn, the working of which is here mentioned by Mr. Cooke as "one of the common experiments repeated for half a century;" consequently, even before either electro-magnetism or a voltaic battery had been known?

When, in consequence of unpleasant disputes between Professor Wheatstone and Mr. Cooke, Sir Isambard Brunel and Professor Daniel were, in 1840, appointed arbitrators,