v
idea had already been made widely known and had reached England at an earlier date.
Dr. Hamel alleges—
telegraph into England, immediately after seeing at Heidelberg Muncke’s copy of Schilling’s
telegraph.Herein the testimony of Dr. Hamel agrees with that of Mr. Cooke, except that Mr. Cooke erroneously ascribed the origin of Muncke’s model to Gauss.— (Hamel, p. 50.)
copy of Schilling’s telegraph that Cooke so
introduced.Mr. Cooke’s volumes, above noticed, refute this
new bent to my thoughts. Having witnessed an electric telegraphic experiment, exhibited about that day by Professor Muncke, of Heidelberg, who had, I believe, taken his ideas from Gauss, I was so much struck with the wonderful power of electricity, and so strongly impressed with its applicability to the practical transmission of telegraphic intelligence, that from that very day I entirely abandoned my former pursuits, and devoted myself thenceforth with equal ardour, as all who know me can testify, to the practical realization of the electric telegraph, an object which has occupied my undivided energies ever since.” The Electric Telegraph, was it invented by Professor Wheatstone? By W. F. Cooke, in two vols., W. H. Smith and Son, London, 1856, vol. 2, page 14.
