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398 feet. Both ends of the wire are connected with a multiplicator, the one at my end consisting of one hundred and seventy, that in Weber's laboratory of fifty coils of wire, each wound around a one-pound magnet suspended according to a method which I have devised. By a simple contrivance—which I have named a commutator—I can reverse the current instantaneously. Carefully operating my voltaic pile, I can cause so violent a motion of the needle in the laboratory to take place that it strikes a bell, the sound of which is audible in the adjoining room. This serves merely as an amusement. Our aim is to display the movements with the utmost accuracy. We have already made use of this apparatus for telegraphic experiments, which have resulted successfully in the transmission of entire words and small phrases. This method of telegraphing has the advantage of being quite independent of either daytime or weather; the one who gives the signal and the one who receives it remain in their rooms, with, if they desire it, the shutters drawn. The employment of sufficiently stout wires, I feel convinced, would enable us to telegraph with but a single tap from Göttingen to Hanover, or from Hanover to Bremen."

The following remarks occur in a letter written by Gauss to H. C. Shumacher, dated August 6, 1835: "In more propitious circumstances than mine, important applications of this method could, no doubt, be made, enuring to the advantage of society and exciting the wonder of the multitude. With an annual budget of one hundred and fifty thalers for observatory and magnetic laboratory together (I make this statement to you in strictest confidence) no grand experiments can be made. Could thousands of dollars be expended upon it, I believe electro-magnetic telegraphy could be brought to a state of perfection, and made to assume such proportions as almost to startle the imagination. The Emperor of Russia could transmit his orders without intermediate stations, in a minute, from Petersburg to Odessa, even peradventure to Kiakhta, if a copper wire of sufficient strength were conducted safely across and attached at both ends to powerful batteries, and with well-trained managers at both stations. I deem it not impossible to design an apparatus that would render a dispatch almost as mechanically as a chime of bells plays a tune that has been arranged for it. One hundred millions' worth of copper wire would amply suffice for a continuous chain to reach the antipodes; for half the distance, a quarter as much, and so on, in proportion to the square of the distance."

At the same meeting the following dispatch was sent to Prof. William Weber, at Göttingen: "The Electro-Technic Association celebrates to-day the year 1883, as the fiftieth anniversary of the first successful operation of the electric telegraph, and salutes you