<P> Gauss was convinced that this communication would be a help to his kingdom's towns . Later in the same year, instead of a Voltaic pile, Gauss used an induction pulse, enabling him to transmit seven letters a minute instead of two . The inventors and university were too poor to develop the telegraph on their own, but they received funding from Alexander von Humboldt . Carl August Steinheil in Munich was able to build a telegraph network within the city in 1835 - 6 . He installed a telegraph line along the first German railroad in 1835 . </P> <P> In 1836 an American scientist, Dr. David Alter, invented the first known American electric telegraph, in Elderton, Pennsylvania, one year before the Morse telegraph . Alter demonstrated it to witnesses but never developed the idea into a practical system . When Alter was interviewed for the book Biographical and Historical Cyclopedia of Indiana and Armstrong Counties, he said: "I may say that there is no connection at all between the telegraph of Morse and others and that of myself...Professor Morse most probably never heard of me or my Elderton telegraph ." </P> <P> Samuel Morse independently developed and patented a recording electric telegraph in 1837 . Morse's assistant Alfred Vail developed an instrument that was called the register for recording the received messages . It embossed dots and dashes on a moving paper tape by a stylus which was operated by an electromagnet . Morse and Vail developed the Morse code signalling alphabet . The first telegram in the United States was sent by Morse on 11 January 1838, across two miles (3 km) of wire at Speedwell Ironworks near Morristown, New Jersey, although it was only later, in 1844, that he sent the message "WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT?" over the 44 miles (71 km) from the Capitol in Washington to the old Mt . Clare Depot in Baltimore . </P> <P> The first commercial electrical telegraph, the Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph, was co-developed by William Fothergill Cooke and Charles Wheatstone . In May 1837 they patented a telegraph system which used a number of needles on a board that could be moved to point to letters of the alphabet . The patent recommended a five - needle system, but any number of needles could be used depending on the number of characters it was required to code . A four - needle system was installed between Euston and Camden Town in London on a rail line being constructed by Robert Stephenson between London and Birmingham . It was successfully demonstrated on 25 July 1837 . Euston needed to signal to an engine house at Camden Town to start hauling the locomotive up the incline . As at Liverpool, the electric telegraph was in the end rejected in favour of a pneumatic system with whistles . </P>

The first telegraph message was transmitted between two cities in