Page:Hamel Telegraph history England 1859.pdf/54

50 Mr. Cooke, who had never occupied bin:self with the study either of natural philosophy in general, or of electricity in particular, did not at all get further acquainted with Professor Muncke; he did not even acquire his name properly; he calls him Möncke. He had no idea that the apparatus he had seen had been contrived by Baron Schilling in Russia. He did subsequently suppose that Professor Möncke might have had the idea from Gauss, whom he calls Gaüss.

Let us see how Mr. Cooke himself, some years afterwards, in 1841, described what I have here, from my own investigation, detailed.

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, 1 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."