"On the 5th of July, 1809, while dining with Soemmering, a member of the Academy of Sciences of Munich, he expressed to him a desire to have this scientific body propose some systems of telegraphy. The savant accepted this idea with the greatest eagerness, and, three days afterward, under date of July 8, he wrote in his journal: ... 'Shall be able to take rest only when I shall have realized telegraphy by the disengagement of gas.'" At this epoch, in fact, the decomposition of water was the sole phenomenon known that would permit the electric current to be used for telegraphy, and Soemmering had rendered himself perfectly conversant with it. He at once bought silver and copper wires, insulated them by means of sealing wax, and, on the 8th of July, constructed his first apparatus (Fig. 5). Five insulated rods, represented by the letters, _a_, _b_, _c_, _d_, _e_, dipped into a vessel, E, containing acidulated water. From these rods there started wires which, combined into a cable, _x_, _x_, and insulated from each other by sealing-wax, could be put in contact with the poles of a Volta pile, S, of 15 elements, formed of zinc disks, Brabant thalers, and felt soaked in dilute hydrochloric acid. On causing a variation in the wires that he put in connection with the poles of the pile, he was enabled to produce a disengagement of gas upon any two definite rods, and thus to transmit the letters that he had taken care to mark the different wires with. The possibility of the system was recognized, and Soemmering at once had an apparatus constructed according to it. On the 22d of July he received it from the hands of the workman nearly such as it is shown in Fig. 6. The decomposing reservoir was of an elongated rectangular shape containing 35 gold rods that corresponded to 25 letters and 10 figures. From these rods started 35 wires covered with silk and combined into a bundle that was afterward covered with melted shellac. At the other extremity of this cable the wires ran to 35 pieces of copper fixed horizontally upon a wooden support, and each provided with an aperture into which could be inserted one of the pins in which the pile wires terminated. When these latter were put in connection with the pieces corresponding to any two letters whatever, gas was observed to disengage itself in the reservoir upon the two corresponding rods, but in greater quantity on the one connected with the negative pole. This fact was not lost upon Soemmering, and he utilized it to render the dispatches more rapid; for it allowed him to transmit two letters always at the same time, with the proviso that the one upon the rod from which most gas was disengaged had been written first.