Page:Hamel Telegraph history England 1859.pdf/8

 subsequently made at St. Petersburg the first electro-magnetic telegraph, which, in a curious way, caused the introduction of such telegraphs in England.

That Soemmerring in Germany made a telegraph, in which the chemical action of the galvanic current on water produced the signals, is known, but nobody has taken the trouble to discover how he was induced to construct it. Even the time when it was made is nowhere accurately given. Often it is stated wrongly by one, two, three, and, in one case, by nine years. It is surprising that the highly meritorious Steinheil, who lives in the very place where Soemmerring had made the first galvanic telegraph, errs likewise by two years.

From a minute and careful examination of the late Dr. Soemmerring’s papers, I am enabled to show that on the sixth of August this year (1859) it will be half a century since the first galvano-electric telegraph was completed.

Dr. Samuel Thomas von Soemmerring, born in 1755, at Thun, and deceased in 1830 at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, had studied at the University of Göttingen. In the year 1778 he travelled in Holland, England and Scotland. From 1779 till 1784 he was at Cassel, and from 1785 till 1796 at Mayence, Professor of Anatomy. From 1796 to