Page:Hamel Telegraph history 1859.djvu/64

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62

he was then lodged, lecture on that subject, but he has never, as I know from himself, given one single lecture thereon to pupils.

As his occupation in painting portraits, ever since his return from Europe in 1832, hardly produced him the means of supporting himself, he, towards the end of 1835, after Baron Schilling's exhibition of his telegraph at Bonn, undertook to try to arrange something for signalising by means of electro-magnetic action, of the possibility of which Dr. Jackson had informed him, but his trials remained without success, because he did not know what was wanted to make a powerful magnet. Two years later, in 1837, when news of the above described doings in Europe reached America (his brother Sidney was editor of a newspaper), he, with the aid of a scientific gentleman, who knew what Professor Henry, then at Princeton, had done with regard to electro-magnets, produced something which, however, was not at all fit for practical use.

Professor Henry and Professor Bache, from America, had been, in 1837, in London, and had visited Professor Wheatstone in King's College on the 11th of April, which was six weeks after Mr. Cooke had been with him. During the summer Professor Wheatstone had signified to