Page:Hamel Telegraph history 1859.djvu/55

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53

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. Professor Möncke's experiment was at that time the only one upon the subject that I had seen or heard of."

Mr. Cooke states, that within three weeks after he had seen Professor Möncke's telegraph, he had got made, partly at Heidelberg (where Mr. Hoppner assisted him), and partly at Frankfort, a similar one, but with three needles, with which he could produce twenty-six signals.

He came to London on the 22nd of v April, 1836. There he applied himself, as he says, almost night and day, to the making of his so-called mechanical instrument, worked by the attraction of an electro-magnet, which in January, 1837, he submitted to several of the leading gentlemen connected with the Liverpool and Manchester railway, proposing its adoption in the long tunnel close to Liverpool, which descends from Edgehill to the station in Lime-street, but this proposal was not followed out.