ed anatomy
and physiology in Paris, acquiring great skill at modelling dissections
in coloured wax.

In the summer of 1835, while touring in Switzerland with his parents, he
visited Heidelberg, and was induced by Professor Tiedeman, director
of the Anatomical Institute, to return there and continue his wax
modelling. He lodged at 97, Stockstrasse, in the house of a brewer,
and modelled in a room nearly opposite. Some of his models have been
preserved in the Anatomical Museum at Heidelberg. In March 1836, hearing
accidentally from Mr. J. W. R. Hoppner, a son of Lord Byron's friend,
that the Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University, Geheime
Hofrath Moncke had a model of Baron Schilling's telegraph, Cooke went
to see it on March 6, in the Professor's lecture room, an upper storey
of an old convent of Dominicans, where he also lived. Struck by what he
witnessed, he abandoned his medical studies, and resolved to apply all
his energies to the introduction of the telegraph. Within three weeks
he had made, partly at Heidelberg, and partly at Frankfort, his first
galvanometer, or needle telegraph. It consisted of three magnetic
needles surrounded by multiplying coils, and actuated by three separate
circuits of six wires. The movements of the needles under the action of
the currents produced twenty-six different signals corresponding to the
letters of the alphabet.

'Whilst completing the model of my original plan,' he wrote to
his mother on April 5, 'others on entirely fresh systems suggested
themselves, and I have at length succeeded in combining the UTILE of
each, but the mechanism requires a more delicate hand than mine to
execute, or rather instruments which I do not possess. These I can
readily have made for me in London, and by the aid of a lathe I shall
be able to adapt the several parts, which I shall have made by different
mechanicians for secrecy's sake. Should I succeed, it may be the means
of putting some hundreds of pounds in my pocket. As it is a subject
on which I was profoundly ignorant, until my attention was casually
attracted to it the other day, I do not know what others may have done
in the same way; this can best be learned in London.'

The 'fresh systems' referred to was his 'mechanical' telegraph,
consisting of two letter dials, working synchronously, and on which
particular letters of the message were indicated by means of an
electro-magnet and detent. Before the end of March he invented the