Of all the marvels of our time, the most marvellous is the subjugation
of the electric fluid, that potent elemental force,--twin brother of the
fatal lightning,--to be our submissive courier, to bear our messages
from land to land, and "put a girdle round about the earth in forty
minutes." The Prospero that tamed this Ariel was no individual genius,
but "two single gentlemen rolled into one." The idea of employing the
electric current for the conveyance of signals between distant points,
can be traced pretty far back in date; but to Mr. Cooke and Professor
Wheatstone is undoubtedly due the credit of having made the electric
telegraph an actual and accomplished fact, and rendered it practicable
for everyday uses.
Having served for a number of years as an officer in our Indian army,
Mr. Cooke came back to Europe to recruit his health in the beginning of
1836, and took up his abode at Heidelberg. He found agreeable
occupation for his leisure in the study of anatomy, and in the
construction of anatomical models for his father's museum at Durham,
where he was a professor in the university. Entirely self-taught in this
delicate art, Mr. Cooke applied himself to it with characteristic
ardour, and attained remarkable skill. One day he happened to witness
some experiments which were made by Professor Moencke, to illustrate the
feasibility of electric signalling. A current of electricity was passed
through a long wire, and set a magnetic needle at the end quivering
under its influence. The experiment was a very simple one, and not at
all novel; but Cooke had never paid any attention to the subject before,
and was much struck with what he saw. He became strongly impressed with
the possibility of employing electricity in the transmission of
telegraphic intelligence between distant places. From the day he
witnessed the experiments in Professor Moencke's classroom, he forsook
the dissecting knife, threw aside his modelling tools, and applied
himself to the realization of his conception. With such ardour and
devotion did he labour, and such skill and ingenuity did he bring to the
work, that within three weeks he had constructed a telegraph with six
wires, forming three complete metallic currents, and influencing three
needles, by the varied inclination of which twenty-six different signals
were designated. In that short time he had also invented the detector,
by which injuries to the wires, whether from water, fracture, or
contact with substances capable of diverting the current, were readily
traced, and the alarum, by which notice is given at one end of the wire
that a message is coming from the other. Both these contrivances were of
the utmost value,--indeed, without them electric telegraphy would be
impracticable,--and are still in use. Possessing more of a mechanical
than a scientific genius, Mr. Cooke bestowed more of his time and
ingenuity on the perfection of a telegraph to be worked by clock
mechanism, set in action by the withdrawal of a detent by an electro
magnet than in the completion of the electric telegraph pure and simple.
Soon after having invented his telegraph, he came over to London, and
spent the rest of the year in making a variety of instruments, and in
efforts to get his telegraph introduced on the Liverpool and Manchester
Railway. He found an obstacle to the complete success of his mechanical
telegraph, in the difficulty of transmitting to a distance sufficient
electric power to work the electro magnet upon which its action
depended. A friend advised him to consult Professor Wheatstone, then
known to be deeply engaged in electrical experiments, with a view to
telegraphy; and accordingly, an interview between them took place in
February 1837.