Martin's-le-Grand
by 100 Wheatstone transmitters. Were Mr. Gladstone himself to speak for
a whole week, night and day, and with his usual facility, he could
hardly surpass this achievement. The plan of sending messages by a
running strip of paper which actuates the key was originally patented by
Bain in 1846; but Wheatstone, aided by Mr. Augustus Stroh, an
accomplished mechanician, and an able experimenter, was the first to
bring the idea into successful operation.
In 1859 Wheatstone was appointed by the Board of Trade to report on the
subject of the Atlantic cables, and in 1864 he was one of the experts
who advised the Atlantic Telegraph Company on the construction of the
successful lines of 1865 and 1866. On February 4, 1867, he published
the principle of reaction in the dynamo-electric machine by a paper to
the Royal Society; but Mr. C. W. Siemens had communicated the identical
discovery ten days earlier, and both papers were read on the same day.
It afterwards appeared that Herr Werner Siemens, Mr. Samuel Alfred
Varley, and Professor Wheatstone had independently arrived at the
principle within a few months of each other. Varley patented it on
December 24, 1866; Siemens called attention to it on January 17, 1867;
and Wheatstone exhibited it in action at the Royal Society on the above
date.
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