The telegraph manual: a complete history and description of the semaphoric, electric and magnetic telegraphs of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, ancient and modern.

SOEMMERING'S ELECTRO-CHE3MICAL
TELEGRAPH.
CHAPTER X.
Soemmering's Electric Telegraph of 1809-The Apparatus and Manipulation
Described-Signal Keys for opening and closing the Circuits.
SOEMMERING'S ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH OF 1809.
THE telegraph invented, in 1809, by Mr. Samuel Thomas
Soemmering, was an electro-chemical telegraph. He was the
first to use the voltaic pile as a generator of the electric current
for telegraphic purposes.
Fig. 1.
From the description, hereinafter given, it will be seen that
Mr. Soemmering contemplated the use of twenty-six or more
wires, or, in other words, a wire for each letter, figure, or
special signal. The wires were to be insulated with silk, and
arranged as seen in fig. 1, between stations A A and B B. The
mechanical arrangement for putting the battery on to any given
wire was very perfect, and any two of the wires could be
readily connected, so as to have a return of the current to the
other end of the pile, as then deemed necessary in the formation of electric currents. When the current was thus sent, the