to remark that a time was coming when a minister might be asked in
Parliament if war had broken out in India, and would reply, 'Wait a
minute; I'll just telegraph to the Governor-General, and let you know.'

At Christchurch, Marylebone, on February 12, 1847, Wheatstone was
married. His wife was the daughter of a Taunton tradesman, and of
handsome appearance. She died in 1866, leaving a family of five young
children to his care. His domestic life was quiet and uneventful.

One of Wheatstone's most ingenious devices was the 'Polar clock,'
exhibited at the meeting of the British Association in 1848. It is
based on the fact discovered by Sir David Brewster, that the light of
the sky is polarised in a plane at an angle of ninety degrees from the
position of the sun. It follows that by discovering that plane of
polarisation, and measuring its azimuth with respect to the north, the
position of the sun, although beneath the horizon, could be determined,
and the apparent solar time obtained. The clock consisted of a spy-
glass, having a nichol or double-image prism for an eye-piece, and a
thin plate of selenite for an object-glass. When the tube was directed
to the North Pole--that is, parallel to the earth's axis--and the prism
of the eye-piece turned until no colour was seen, the angle of turning,
as shown by an index moving with the prism over a graduated limb, gave
the hour of day. The device is of little service in a country where
watches are reliable; but it formed part of the equipment of the North
Polar expedition commanded by Captain Nares. Wheatstone's remarkable
ingenuity was displayed in the invention of cyphers which have never
been unravelled, and interpreting cypher manuscripts in the British
Museum which had defied the experts. He devised a cryptograph or
machine for turning a message into cypher which could only be
interpreted by putting the cypher into a corresponding machine adjusted