"I have, sir, read your dissertation upon my telegraph with great pleasure.... Has my succinct memoir on the telegraph, sent from here on the 12th of November, reached you, sir, and have you had the goodness to communicate it to the Institute? "As the old wires that were pretty badly treated by many manipulations had really suffered therefrom, and as it was only to save time that I did not have them renewed before sending the apparatus, I wish that they could be replaced by ordinary clavichord wires wound with silk, inasmuch as the material in these is more durable than the copper of the old ones. Had I been able to flatter myself, sir, that you would have taken enough interest in this invention to be at the trouble of carrying it to Paris, I should certainly not have failed to effect in advance this small and necessary improvement, which, leaving time out of consideration, will require but a care as to details. For, in fact, I strongly apprehend that not only the brittleness of the copper wire, but also the violence that trials anterior and even foreign to present use have submitted these wires to, have possibly got the silk out of order, or used it up here and there, thus producing immediate contacts of metal and bringing about a premature closing of the galvanic chain, whence would result a total disarrangement of the questions. I truly regret, then, having (through being too jealous of time, which you yourself know so well the value of) sent you the instrument in such a state of imperfection, and I cannot do better than ask to have it sent back here in good order. Permit me, then, to ask you at once to please not let Prince de Neufchatel nor even His Majesty the Emperor see it until the said repair has been effected, either by myself or (if the sending back would seem to you to take too long) by some one of our skillful artists at Paris. According to my convictions, there is but this means of preventing its effect from failing us, even for ever. It is a true pleasure to see it so infallible and complete as it is in the new instrument of absolutely the same structure that I have had constructed for the Academy of Munich." The telegraph, which doubtless was repaired at Paris, was returned to Munich only in May, 1811. The same year it was carried to Vienna by the Russian Count Potocki, whom Baron Schilling had made known to Soemmering, and who presented the apparatus to Emperor Francis the First, on the 1st of July of the same year. Another model was sent by Soemmering to his son William, then at Geneva, who showed it to Augustus Pictet, to De la Rive, and to some other savants.