Note 10 — THE LEVER KEY.
Reading edition
In Prof. Daniel’s, Introduction to the Study of Chemical Philosophy, 2d edition, 1843, there are these facts to be noticed. In the preface, there are these words: “It only remains for me now, to acknowledge my obligations to my friends and colleagues, Professor Wheatstone and Dr. Todd, for their great kindness in undergoing the disagreeable labour of revising and correcting the proof sheets. They have thereby prevented many errors which would have otherwise deformed the work.”
No statement then of Prof. Daniel’s, particularly in that part of his work which related especially to Wheatstone’s Telegraph, would be allowed to pass unnoticed by Mr. Wheatstone and we are authorizsed in considering any such statement as having his sanction.
We then find, page 576, the following statement: “Ingenious as Prof. Wheatstone’s, contrivances are, they would have been of no avail for telegraphic purposes, without the investigation which he was the first to make of the laws of electro magnets, when acted on through great lengths of wire. Electro magnets of the greatest power, even when the most energetic batteries are employed, utterly cease to act when they are connected by considerable lengths of wire with the battery.”
If any thing were needed to show that Prof. Wheatstone was not the inventor of the Electro Magnetic Telegraph, it is this assertion (under the supervision of Prof. Wheatstone) made by Prof. Daniel. In 1843, Prof. Wheatstone had not made the discovery upon which Prof. Morse bases his invention, viz. that Electro Magnets can be made to act, with an inconsiderable battery too, when the latter is connected with the former by considerable lengths of wire: 80 miles may certainly be considered as of considerable length.