Accident, however, soon demonstrated this fact. ... The following year (1845) telegraph lines began to be built over other routes. ... In October, 1851, a convention of deputies from the German States of Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Würtemberg and Saxony, met at Vienna, for the purpose of establishing a common and uniform telegraphic system, under the name of the German-Austrian Telegraph Union. The various systems of telegraphy then in use were subjected to the most thorough examination and discussion. The convention decided with great unanimity that the Morse system was practically far superior to all others, and it was accordingly adopted. Prof. Steinheil, although himself ... the inventor of a telegraphic system, with a magnanimity that does him high honor, strongly urged upon the convention the adoption of the American system." ... The first of the printing telegraphs was patented in the United States by Royal E. House, in 1846. The Hughes printing telegraph, a remarkable piece of mechanism, was patented by David E. Hughes, of Kentucky, in 1855. A system known as the automatic method, in which the signals representing letters are transmitted over the line through the instrumentality of mechanism, was originated by Alexander Bain of Edinburgh, whose first patents were taken out in 1846. An autographic telegraph, transmitting despatches in the reproduced hand-writing of the sender, was brought out in 1850, by F. C. Bakewell, of London. The same result was afterwards accomplished with variations of method by Charles Cros, of Paris, Abbé Caseli, of Florence, and others; but none of these inventions has been extensively used. "The possibility of making use of a single wire for the simultaneous transmission of two or more communications seems to have first suggested itself to Moses G. Farmer, of Boston, about the year 1852." The problem was first solved with partial success by Dr. Gintl, on the line between Prague and Vienna, in 1853, but more perfectly by Carl Frischen, of Hanover, in the following year. Other inventors followed in the same field, among them Thomas A. Edison, of New Jersey, who was led by his experiments finally, in 1874 to devise a system "which was destined to furnish the basis of the first practical solution of the curious and interesting problem of quadruplex telegraphy." _G. B. Prescott, Electricity and the Electric Telegraph, chapter 29-40._ ELECTRICITY: A. D. 1831-1872. Dynamo Electrical Machines, and Electric Motors.