19
he obtained an apparatus which he took with him to Paris.[1]
On the 22nd August, Prince Leopold of Saxe Coburg, now King of the Belgians, honoured Soemmerring with a visit to see the telegraph in action. He was accompanied by the Saxon Minister, Count Einsiedel.
In September, Soemmerring simplified his telegraph considerably; he reduced the number of wires in his conducting cord from 35 to 27.
On the 9th October, Baron Comeau had introduced the then Bavarian Minister at Paris, Anton de Cetto, to Soemmerring, that he might see the telegraph. He was accompanied by his son, now Bavarian Minister in London, Baron August de Cetto, who well recollects this visit.
On the 15th November, Soemmerring sent a newly made
telegraph to his son Wilhelm, at Geneva, where he was
- ↑ This was the same Robertson with whose assistance the Imperiel Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg had, in the month of July, 1804, instituted a balloon ascent for scientific purposes, which was previous to Biot’s and Gay-Lussac’s ascent (on the 24th August), and Gay-Lussac’s (on the 16th September) in the same year. In the last (eighth) edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1853), it is erroneously stated, that the two latter ascents had been the first ever undertaken solely for objects of science.
