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836 it which, having been caught in it, the shipmasters had been obliged to cast away. At Verviers the line was connected with an overhead line to Brussels. One Herr Reuter, who had been managing a carrier-pigeon post between Cologne and Brussels, found his business ruined by the telegraph. Frau Reuter complaining to Siemens of this, he advised the pair to go to London and establish there a telegraphic news agency, as Herr Wolff had succeeded in doing at Berlin. This was the origin of "Reuter's." These enterprises had been carried on under a furlough from army service, which was about to expire, and Herr Siemens, in order to devote himself to scientific and technical work, resigned his position in the army in June, 1849, left the telegraphic service shortly afterward, and began a career of independent scientific industry. His underground system was generally adopted in Germany. To prevent the depredations of rats on the gutta-percha coatings, he drew the wire through lead pipes. He recognized the excellences of the Morse telegraphic instrument, and sought to improve it. In April, 1850, he presented a memoir on his experiments in telegraphy—Mémoire sur la Télégraphie Électrique—before the French Academy of Sciences, and received, upon the report of the committee to which it was referred, the acknowledgment of the Academy, thus fixing the stamp of that authority upon his claims for originality and priority.

While Siemens's system was being extended and adopted in foreign countries, particularly in Russia, the Prussian lines, under official management, constructed in a slovenly manner and carelessly repaired, deteriorated. Siemens published a pamphlet criticising these faults and pointing out the remedies, in consequence of which unauthorized comment the Government discontinued all connection with his house for several years. The loss of this business was, however, more than compensated for by that which accrued from railroad telegraphy, still free from official domination, and by contracts coming in from abroad.

The connection of Siemens with the Russian telegraph lines began in 1849, when his instruments were adopted for the line between St. Petersburg and Moscow. In the winter of 1852 he went to Riga, on business connected with the construction of a line to that point, and particularly with the crossing of the Dwina. Other lines calling for visits to Russia, and in connection with which the St. Petersburg branch of the house of Siemens and Halske was built up, were those to Kronstadt—the first successful submarine cable line—and Warsaw. The success of the last line determined the Russian Government to cover the whole empire with a telegraphic network, and lines were built in succession from Moscow to Kiev, Kiev to Odessa, St. Petersburg to Revel, from Kovno to the Prussian borders, and from St.