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

GOLD-LEAF TELEGRAPH APPARATUS. 299
The next patent was taken out in January, 1848, by Messrs.
H. and E. Highton.
At this time Mr. Edward Highton was acting as telegraphic
engineer to the London and Northwestern Railway Company,
and was pressed by that company to invent a set of electric
telegraphs free from the objections and defects inherent to most
telegraphs then in use, and free also from any of the then existing patents.
Every telegraph proposed or executed at that time, was minutely investigated, and their defects studied with the greatest
care. Neither time nor money was spared to accomplish the
objects desired. The result was a series of inventions of great
variety and extent.
For these inventions, the patentees received from the hands
of His Royal Highness Prince Albert, as President of the Society of Arts, the greatest honor the society had the power to
bestow, viz., their Large Gold Medal.
Several of the plans were immediately adopted on the London
and Northwestern Railway, in preference to those of the old
Electric Telegraph Company, who then possessed a great number of patents. The telegraphs gave the greatest, satisfaction,
and have been in constant daily use ever since.
The principal feature of the inventions in this patent were, viz.:
The horseshoe magnet was suited to coils, and was thought
to be much superior to the old straight magnetic needle and
coil of Cooke and Wheatstone. In step-by-step motion telegraphs, a means was provided for causing the pointer or disk at
once to progress by one bound to zero on the starting point.
The maximum work capable of being produced by any number of lines was taken advantage of, and -thus three wires were
made to produce 26 primary signals, and so to show instantly
any desired letter of the alphabet. Under Ampere's plan, 26
wires must have been used, and under Cooke and Wheatstone's
patent, 6 wires. Suitable keys were devised for sending currents of electricity over three wires in the 26 orders of variation.
Direct-action printing telegraphs were devised, so that a single touch of one out of 26 keys caused instantly any desired
one out of 26 letters or symbols to be printed.
The insulation of wires was improved, and many other improvements relating to electric telegraphs effected.
The advantage of the horseshoe magnet over the straight
magnet or magnetic needle of Professor Wheatstone was thus
stated by Mr. Highton: When a coil surrounds a straight
magnetic needle, as used by Messrs. Cooke and Wheatstone,
each convolution of the wire has to pass tzice over the central
or dead part: of the magnet; whereas, if the horse-shoe magnet