and in England with accordant results. It was pointed out, however,
that the influence of the earth’s magnetism and other sources of
error might produce discrepancies; but Professor Wheatstone invented
an apparatus which presented a complete illustration not only of
the general principle, but of the precise law of the sine of the
latitude. He maintained the principle that so long as the _axis_ of
vibration continues parallel to itself, the _arc_ of vibration will
continue parallel to itself; but if the _axis_ does not continue
parallel, the direction of the arc of vibration will _deviate_. His
apparatus illustrated that principle. Instead of a pendulum he used
the vibrations of a coiling spring, the axis of which could be placed
in any required inclination or _latitude_ with respect to a vertical
semicircular frame which revolved about its vertical axis: the
direction of the vibration was seen to change in a degree proportioned
to the sine of the latitude or inclination. He remarked, with reference
to Foucault’s experiment, that the difficulty of the mechanical
investigation of the subject, and the delicacy of an experiment liable
to so many causes of error, had led many persons to doubt either the
reality of the phenomena or the satisfactoriness of the explanation;
and he therefore supplied an experimental proof which was not dependent
upon the rotation of the earth. His experimental proof was pronounced
the most complete and satisfactory that had been given.
Another subject that attracted his attention for years was the art of
writing in cipher. When he was before a Parliamentary Committee in
1840 he was asked whether the telegraph was not open to the objection
that the officials working it necessarily became acquainted with the
contents of all the messages. His only reply to that objection then
was that secret messages could be sent in cipher. In later years
he constructed a machine for that purpose, intending to complete
the benefits of the electric telegraph by rendering it possible to
transmit telegraphic messages in a way that would render their contents
unintelligible to the officials through whose hands they passed.
This machine was called the cryptograph, and it periodically changed
the characters representing the successive letters of the written
communication, so that it could not be read except by the receiver,
who, possessing a corresponding machine set in the same way as the
sender’s, could by reversing the operation understand the characters.
He stated that by the aid of this instrument an extensive secret
correspondence could be carried on with several persons, and a separate
cipher could be employed by each correspondent. The cipher despatches
prepared by it were unintelligible to any person unacquainted with the
word that might be selected as the basis of the cipher alphabet, and
though any person might possess one of the instruments, he could not
translate the cipher so long as the key-word was kept secret. Although
this instrument has been scarcely known to the public, experience has
proved its simplicity and efficiency; and it has been employed by the
British Government, the French Government, and the English police.
Its principle is easily understood. Any word in which the same letter
does not recur, may be selected as the key-word. Take the word
“saucer,” and write under the separate letters of it, the remaining
letters of the alphabet consecutively in the following columnar form:
S a u c e r
b d f g h i
j k l m n o
p q t v w x
y z
In the machine are two movable spaces, one containing the letters of
the alphabet in the usual order, and the other adapted to receive in
juxtaposition the cipher letters which, with “saucer” as the key-word,
would be the above letters arranged in a row, one column following
another, thus:
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
s b j p y a d k q z u f l t c g m v e h n w r i o x
A marvellous instance of his skill in deciphering cryptographic
documents occurred in 1858. Sir Henry Ellis relates that a good many
years previously the trustees of the British Museum purchased at a
high price what appeared to be a very important document in cipher,
occupying seven folio pages closely filled with numerals. The top
of every page bore the signature of King Charles the First, and was
countersigned by Digbye. For a long time Sir Henry Ellis endeavoured
to get it deciphered for the purpose of including it in his series of
letters illustrative of the history of England, but he could not get
any one able to read it. One evening at Earl Stanhope’s he accidentally
mentioned that fact to Lord Wrottesley, who suggested that Professor
Wheatstone’s ingenuity might be able to unravel the secret writing,
and accordingly Sir Henry Ellis at once sent it to the Professor,
requesting that he would investigate its contents. This took place on
June 1st, 1858. In the document in question about ninety different
numerals were employed to represent the letters of the alphabet, and
besides the complexity of each letter being represented by several
distinct numerals, there was no division between the different words,
and the numbers represented not English (as was at first supposed) but
French words. This document, which had baffled all other experts, was
interpreted by Professor Wheatstone. A copy of it having been sent two
or three years afterwards to the Philobiblon Society, along with the
key to the cipher, the Society expressed “their admiration of this
additional instance of that wonderful faculty of interpretation which
seems to ordinary minds a special intuition not unworthy of a great
scientific discoverer and practical benefactor of the age.”
Among the subjects that engaged his attention both at the beginning
and the close of his electrical studies was the construction of
self-registering thermometers. In 1843 he invented a telegraphic
thermometer, or rather an electro-magneto-meteorological register. It
recorded the indications of the barometer, and the thermometer, and
the psychrometer every half-hour, and printed the result in figures
on a sheet of paper. The recording mechanism was a kind of clockwork,
which was capable of registering 1000 observations in a week without
any readjustment, and it could be prepared in five minutes for
another week’s work. In consequence of this periodic winding up, the
instrument could not be left for an indefinite time; and as there
were many situations in which it was desirable to have meteorological
indications, but to which access could not be obtained for long
periods, he devised a new telegraphic thermometer whose indications
were made visible at distant stations without the aid of clockwork. It
consisted of two parts; one part, called the responder, contained a
metallic thermometer consisting of a spiral ribbon of two dissimilar
metals; this responder was connected by two telegraph wires with the
other portion of the apparatus called the questioner, which recorded
the changes of temperature by the movement of a hand on a dial round
the edge of which was a thermometric scale. The responder could be
placed at the top of a high mountain for any length of time, while its
indications could be read at the station below; it could be placed
deep down in the earth whose temperature could thus be ascertained
over a long period; or it might be lowered to the bottom of the sea,
and its indications read at intervals during its descent as well as
periodically at the bottom, whereas previous marine thermometers
required to be raised at every fresh observation.
In 1871 Mr. Spottiswoode delivered a lecture at the Royal Institution
on “Some experiments on successive polarisation of light made by Sir
Charles Wheatstone.” He explained that the experiments then described
were made by Wheatstone some years previously, but the pressure of
other avocations delayed their publication. Certain it is that the
polarisation of light formed the subject of experiments twenty-five
years previously, for in 1848 Professor Wheatstone described to the
British Association an apparatus which by means of the polarisation
of light indicated true solar time in places where a sun-dial would
be useless. It was called Wheatstone’s polar clock or dial, and he
described several forms of it.
It would be tedious to enumerate all his minor inventions; but it is
worthy of observation that from first to last there was a remarkable
periodicity in the production of his chief inventions. Beginning with
his magic lyre in 1821, he invented the concertina in 1829,[8] and
his first telegraph in 1837. Between 1837 and 1843 he produced eight
inventions; and after that period his next notable inventions were his
pseudoscope and his novel apparatus illustrating the rotation of the
earth in 1851. In 1858 he produced his automatic transmitter, which
was succeeded in 1867 by his dynamo. It thus appears that a period
of eight years elapsed between each of these important inventions,
with the single exception of the interval from 1837 to 1843, when he
produced eight inventions. This periodic ripening of his fertile mind
into a rich harvest of inventions extended over half a century. It
need scarcely be matter of surprise, therefore, that when death put
a stop to his labours on the eve of another cycle, he left evidences
of fresh fruits which were not yet matured. His last invention was a
new recording instrument for submarine cables. It consisted of a globe
of mercury which a slight electrical impulse caused to move to and
fro in a capillary tube containing acid, the movements of the globule
to the right or left by the delicate current of a cable representing
telegraphic signs. It was said at the time to be fifty-eight times more
sensitive than any previous recorder.
“The catalogue of Wheatstone’s valuable labours,” says a friend of
his, “is still far from being exhausted: but it must now suffice only
to mention some of his unpublished and incomplete researches, of
which many exist. At the early part of his career, when his thoughts
were mainly directed to Acoustics, he endeavoured to investigate
the causes of the differences of ‘timbre’ or _quality_ of tone in
different musical instruments, presuming it to depend on the nature
of superposed secondary vibrations, and of the material by which they
are affected. This the writer frequently, but in vain, urged him to
complete and publish; but such was the fecundity of his imagination
that he would frequently work steadily for a time at a given subject,
and then entirely put it aside in pursuit, it may be, of some more
important or more practical idea that had presented itself to his
mind. A short treatise is in existence on the capabilities of his
well-known wave-machine, in which rows of white balls, mounted on rods,
are actuated in two directions perpendicular to each other by guides
or templets with suitable curved outlines; by means of this machine
many combinations of plane and helical waves may be demonstrated, and
especially those related to the theory of polarised light.
“In furtherance of this subject he devised a new form or mode of
geometrical analysis, to which he gave the title of Bifarial Algebra,
in which both the magnitude and the relative position of lines on
a plane surface are designed to be represented by the introduction
of two new symbols to represent positive and negative perpendicular
directions. The same principle has also been extended to three
dimensions, with a further proposal of new symbols, under the name
of Trifarial Algebra. On this subject a brief treatise exists in
manuscript.
“Among the subjects of his more recent but still incomplete
investigations in light and electricity, the following may be
mentioned:--colours of transparent and opaque bodies; colours obtained
by transmission and reflection; absorption-bands in coloured liquids;
spectroscopic examination of light reflected from opaque and dichroic
bodies; electro-motive forces of various combinations; inductive
capacities of various bodies; experiments on electro-capillarity; and
the construction of relays.”
“Although any one would be charmed by his able and lucid exposition
of any scientific fact or principle in private, yet his attempt to
repeat the same process in public invariably proved unsatisfactory.
An anecdote may here be mentioned in confirmation of this peculiar
idiosyncrasy. Wheatstone and the writer of this were for several years
members of a small private debating society comprising several familiar
names in science, art, or literature, that met periodically at one
another’s houses to discuss some extemporaneous subject, and every
member was expected to speak. Wheatstone never could be induced to open
his lips, even on subjects on which he was brimful of information.”
His familiar form, says Mr. W. H. Preece, was well known to the old
_habitués_ of the Royal Institution. “Whenever either of his favourite
subjects, light, sound, or electricity, was under discussion, his
little, active, nervous, and intelligent form was present, eagerly
listening to the lecturer. He was no lecturer himself, yet no one was
more voluble in conversation. In explaining any object of his own
invention, or any apparatus before him, no one was more apt, but when
he appeared before an audience and became the focus of a thousand
eyes, all his volubility fled; and left him without a particle of that
peculiar quality which enables an individual with confidence to come
before a critical audience, such as is represented by the members
of the Royal Institution, to develop scientific facts or describe
apparatus. This defect proved fortunate, for it was the cause of
Wheatstone obtaining the aid of the greatest lecturer of the age; and
the annals of that Institution bear record of many Friday evenings
being occupied by Faraday in expounding the ‘beautiful developments,’
as he called them, of Wheatstone.... Though he was no lecturer, or
prolific writer, he was an unrivalled conversationalist, and those
who had the pleasure of his conversation could never forget the
lucidity with which he explained his apparatus. His bibliographical
knowledge was almost incredible. He seemed to know every book that
was written and every fact recorded, and any one in doubt had only to
go to Wheatstone to get what he wanted. The elegance of the design of
everything Wheatstone accomplished must always maintain him in the very
first rank of the wonderful geniuses of this wonderful century.”
Many honours and distinctions were conferred on him. He received
the degrees of D.C.L. and LL.D. from the Universities of Oxford and
Cambridge, and he was made a corresponding or honorary member of all
the principal scientific academies in Europe. Of the thirty-four
distinctions conferred on him by Governments, Universities, or learned
Societies, eight were German, six French, five English, three Swiss,
two Scotch, two Italian, two American, besides one Irish, Swedish,
Russian, Belgian, Dutch, and Brazilian. Most of his honours were
conferred in recognition of his electrical inventions. For these he
was knighted in 1868; and both before and after that date he was
more lavishly praised abroad than at home. In 1867, the President of
the Italian Society of Sciences, in conferring on him the honour of
honorary membership, said that the applications of the principle of the
Rotating Mirror were so important and so various that this discovery
must be considered as one of those which have most contributed in these
latter times to the progress of experimental physics. “The memoir
on the measure of electric currents and all questions which relate
thereto and to the laws of Ohm has powerfully contributed to spread
among physicists the knowledge of these facts and the mode of measuring
them with an accuracy and simplicity which before we did not possess.
All physicists know how many researches have since been undertaken
with the rheostat and with the so-called ‘Wheatstone Bridge,’ and how
usefully these instruments have been applied to the measurement of
electric currents, of the resistance of circuits, and of electro-motive
forces.”
In 1873 the French Society for the Encouragement of National Industry
presented him with the great medal of Ampère which is awarded every
six years for what is considered the most important application of
science to industry. The former recipients of this medal were Henri St.
Claire Deville, who introduced the manufacture of aluminium; Ferdinand
De Lesseps, the engineer of the Suez Canal; and Boussingault, the
distinguished agricultural chemist. Of Sir Charles Wheatstone, the
Committee of Economic Arts said: “While his kaleidophone has been the
point of departure in a method which permits sound to be studied by
the aid of the eye; while his researches on the qualities of sound and
on the production of vowels, as well as the creation of his speaking
machine have realised many points in the theory of the voice; while his
ingenious apparatus illustrating the propagation and the combination of
waves has facilitated the understanding of these delicate phenomena and
contributed to throw light on the mechanism of undulatory motion, his
numerous researches on the application of electricity, in which he has
shown both profound science and a genius marvellously inspired, occupy
a great place in the history of the electric telegraph. It was he who
first realised, under conditions really practicable, this admirable
means of communication between men and between nations, and we ought
not to forget that more than once he has come personally among us to
prepare its organisation and promote its success. The unanimous choice
made by the Committee of the Economic Arts, and cordially ratified by
the Council, honours our society as much as him who is the object of
it. We hope to give on this occasion a testimony of sympathy with a
nation in which science is held in such high esteem. In conferring on
Sir Charles Wheatstone a reward rendered valuable by those who have
already received it, the Council performs a pure act of justice, and
acquits, at least for some among us, a debt of gratitude.”
For many years he was a corresponding member of the French Academy of
Sciences, and on June 30, 1873, he was elected a Foreign Associate
in succession to Baron Liebig, deceased, and his election to this
position, the highest honour which it was in the power of that body to
bestow upon “a foreigner,” was almost unanimous.
While the highest honours that Science could bestow were thus being
conferred on him, he was seized with inflammation of the chest, from
which he died at Paris on October 19, 1875. His remains were removed
to London and interred in Kensal Green Cemetery. Prior to the removal
of his body from Paris, a religious service was held at the Anglican
chapel, at which a deputation from the Academy attended, and MM. Dumas
and Tresca delivered addresses. M. Dumas said: “To render to genius the
homage which is its due, without regard to country or origin, is to
honour one’s self. The Paris Academy of Sciences, always sympathising
with English science, did not hesitate, during the troubled time of the
wars of the Empire, to decree a _grand prix_ to Sir Humphry Davy. Now
in a time of peace it comes to fulfil with grief a duty of affection to
one of his noblest successors, by gathering round his coffin to offer
him a last homage. A foreign Associate of the Academy of Sciences,
exercising by a rare privilege in virtue of that title all the rights
of its members during his life, we are bound to render to his mortal
remains the same tribute which we render to fellow-countrymen who are
our colleagues. The memory of Sir Charles Wheatstone will live among us
not only for his discoveries and for the methods of investigation with
which he has endowed science; but also by the recollection of his rare
qualities of heart, the uprightness of his character, and the agreeable
charm of his personal demeanour.”
The President of the Society of Telegraph Engineers, Mr. Latimer Clark,
in announcing his death, said: “If you wish correctly to estimate
the magnitude of a building, it is necessary to place yourself at
a distance from it; it is only then you can fully realise its real
proportions as compared with its fellows. So it is with the name of
Sir Charles Wheatstone. I feel that in order to appreciate how great a
man he has been we must look forward many years--I mean by that a very
great many years--if we can take our stand in imagination a thousand
years hence, the name of Wheatstone will still be well known and highly
honoured. So far as we can judge from the history of the human race
and of the past, I am of opinion that, as long as history lasts, the
name of Wheatstone will be associated with that of Watt and Stephenson
as men who, in the era of Queen Victoria, were prominent in the
introduction of those magnificent enterprises by which the whole world
has been practically reduced to one-twentieth part of its former size.
Our successors will hear in their day of the giants of the Victorian
era; they will hear of Watt in connection with the steam-engine, and
of Stephenson in connection with the locomotive and railways; and they
will also hear of Wheatstone in connection with the electric telegraph.
We who are closer to him, and know more of the history of the
invention, are well aware that others are entitled to share with him
in the fullest degree the honour of the introduction of the electric
telegraph; but history is written very much by scientific men, and Sir
Charles Wheatstone was himself an eminently scientific man, and mingled
so much with scientific men, that those who will be the recorders of
the history of the future will, to a great extent, associate his name
alone with the practical introduction of the electric telegraph.”
FOOTNOTES:
[8] The date of his musical inventions were 1821,
1829, 1836, 1844, and 1851, giving an interval of
seven or eight years between each.
PROFESSOR MORSE.
CHAPTER I.
“The sun, the moon, the stars
Send no such light upon the ways of men
As one great deed.”--TENNYSON.
The ideas of several men, says Mr. J. L. Ricardo, are set in motion
by exactly the same circumstances; and men who are in the habit of
putting things together very often have the same ideas at the same
time. The history of electrical inventions presents many illustrations
of this observation; and at first sight it might appear as if the old
world had, in like manner, vied with the new in designing apparatus
for applying electricity to useful purposes. The study of electrical
phenomena began in America about the same time as in Europe. The story
of Franklin’s experiments with lightning has almost become a household
tale, and he is justly regarded as one of the patriarchs of electrical
science. But his strength lay in the application or explication of
electrical phenomena rather than in their initiation, and in that
respect subsequent American electricians may be said to have followed
in the footsteps of their illustrious ancestor. Hence in the history of
electricity America occupies a unique position. Dean Swift said that
invention was the talent of youth, and judgment of age; and certain
it is that America’s electrical inventions have shown the boldness and
novelty of youth, while Europe might be said to have gathered more of
the fruits of judgment or experience. In mechanical appliances the new
world has seemed to complete the inventions begun in the old world.
Such was the case with the recording telegraph, the telephone, and the
electric light. But in another class of inventions America did little
or nothing. It was Europe that supplied the artificial generators of
electricity. The voltaic pile, the thermo-electric pile, the Daniell
and Grove batteries, and the dynamo machine were creations of the
old world; and curiously enough, while the great inventions made in
America for the application of electricity were the work of men who
had not passed middle age, the men in the old world who supplied the
means of generating electricity did so after they had passed the
meridian of life. But if the inventors of generators had no rivals in
the new world, they were far from being exempt from rivalry nearer
home. The invention of the dynamo machine, almost simultaneously
as well as independently, by three different men, as narrated in a
previous chapter, is pretty well known. Nor is the pile which bears the
name of Volta an exception. In 1793 Professor Robinson, of Edinburgh
University, wrote that electricity could be generated by using a number
of pieces of zinc of the size of a shilling made into a rouleau with
as many real shillings. That was the first suggestion of the pile;
but it was not till Volta, writing from Como in 1800, announced, in a
more elaborate manner, his discovery that zinc and copper interlaid
with wet paper or leather produced electricity, that public attention
was directed to its importance. It is worthy of note that nearly all
the men who discovered generators of electricity--from Galvani to Sir
William Thomson, were natural philosophers, who, as already remarked,
made their discoveries at an advanced period of life--a fact which
seems to indicate that electrical generators are some of the choicest
and ripest fruits of the study of natural philosophy.
The close of the eighteenth century, says Sir John Leslie, was
distinguished by the accession of a new branch of electrical science
more brilliant and astonishing than even the parent stock; and
after describing the discoveries of Galvani and Volta, he says they
deservedly commenced a new epoch in physical science and led to the
most splendid and wonderful discoveries. The year 1791, when Galvani
published at Bologna a complete account of his experiments on animal
electricity, in which the leg of a frog played such a memorable part,
may therefore be described as the birth-time of modern electricity.
In the same year was born the immortal Faraday, whose researches in
electricity not only enriched science but silenced the voice of envy;
and in the same year was born Samuel F. B. Morse, whose ingenuity and
perseverance gave to the world one of the most original and useful
methods of conveying intelligence by electricity. Professor Daniell,
whose invention of the constant battery gave a marked impulse to the
progress of practical electricity, was born in 1790, the same year
in which Benjamin Franklin died, who, in the absence of artificial
generators, drew his supplies of electricity from the clouds. It has
been often said that Franklin was the American who brought electricity
from the clouds to the earth, and that Morse made it subservient to the
purposes of man.
Samuel Finley Breese Morse was born on April 27, 1791, a little over
a mile from where Franklin was born, and a little over a year after
Franklin died. Franklin was the youngest son of the youngest son for
five successive generations, and he was the fifteenth child of his
father. But in the Morse family it was generally the eldest son who
displayed ability or attained distinction. The family was of English
origin, but had been settled in America a century and a half. Anthony
Morse, who was born at Marlborough in Wiltshire in 1606, went to
America in 1635. His son had ten children, of whom the eldest, named
Jedediah, was born in 1726, and was an active public man. The eighth
son of the latter, also named Jedediah, was the father of Samuel
Morse. He was an eminent divine and author, whose attainments were
considered of such a high order that a Scotch University conferred
on him the degree of D.D. His wife was also described as a person of
unusual ability and dignity, who was born at New York in a house at
the corner of Wall Street and Hanover Street, near to which the first
telegraph office was afterwards opened. They were living at the foot
of Breeds Hill, Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1791, when Samuel F. B.
Morse was born. He was the eldest of eleven children. In his fourth
year he was sent to an old dame’s school, and in his seventh year
to the preparatory school of Andover, where he is reported to have
studied with ability and assiduity. Like his prototype Franklin, he
then read Plutarch’s _Lives_, and this work is said to have given the
first impulse to his mind. At the age of thirteen he wrote a Life of
Demosthenes, which was preserved as a memorial of his early powers,
and which gave characteristic indications of the excellence that
distinguished his literary work in after life. At the age of fourteen
he entered Yale College, where he got his first lessons in electricity.
Jeremiah Day, who was then Professor of Natural Philosophy, delivered
some lectures in 1809 upon the laws of electricity, and illustrated
them by experiments. One proposition which Day expounded was that
if a circuit be interrupted the electricity will become visible at
the point of interruption, and that when it has passed it will leave
an impression upon any intermediate object. Day declared many years
afterward that he remembered one experiment which consisted in letting
the electricity pass through a chain or through any metallic bodies
placed at small distances from each other, whereby the current in a
dark room became visible between the links or between the metallic
bodies. In another experiment he showed that if several folds of paper
were placed so as to interrupt a circuit, they would be perforated by
the electricity. In after years Morse described these experiments as
the acorn which, falling into fruitful soil, eventually spread its
boughs far and wide. Another eminent professor at Yale College was
Benjamin Silliman, who in later years testified that Morse attended his
lectures on chemistry and galvanism between 1808 and 1810, and that the
batteries then in use were exhibited and explained in detail. Moreover,
Morse himself wrote letters to his parents in 1809 expressing much
gratification at the chemical lectures he had heard at Yale College,
and an earnest desire to get apparatus for the purpose of illustrating
the experiments at home. In his home letters he especially mentioned
Professor Day’s lectures on electricity as being most interesting,
and as being illustrated by some very fine experiments. Those who
knew Morse while at Yale College, where he took his degree in 1810,
described him as gentle, refined, studious, and enthusiastic; and as
he appeared then to be in love with the science of electricity, it is
natural to inquire how he came to forsake it for so many years.
Dr. Johnson states in his Life of Cowley that in the window of his
mother’s apartment lay Spenser’s _Fairy Queen_, in which he very
early took delight to read till by feeling the charms of verse, he
became, as he relates, irrecoverably a poet. “Such are the accidents
which, sometimes remembered and perhaps sometimes forgotten, produce
that particular designation of mind and propensity for some certain
science or employment, which is commonly called genius. The true genius
is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some
particular direction. Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great painter, had the
first fondness for his art excited by the perusal of Richardson’s
treatise.” It was an accidental circumstance of a different kind that
directed the attention of Samuel Morse from electricity to art. His
father, being a man of small means and having a large family, was
unable to supply the enthusiastic student with sufficient funds to
complete his college course, and to provide for the deficiency, Samuel
betook himself to painting the portraits of such of his companions as
could afford to pay him five dollars, and it is said that by this means
he partly defrayed the cost of his education. A first success, like a
first love, often forms the keynote of a life; and so pleased was young
Samuel Morse at the success of his first artistic efforts that he soon
determined to make his living by art. He accordingly directed all his
energies and resources to the study of art, and became the pupil of a
distinguished American artist, Washington Allston, who took a great
interest in him and perceiving his fine powers took him to England in
1811. Though only a young man of twenty, Morse got introductions to
Copley and West, who in turn, introduced him to Wilberforce, Zachary
Macaulay, and other notable men. While in London he lodged with Charles
Leslie, who had not then risen to fame, and who was the son of American
parents.
While in London his patron was Benjamin West, who was himself a native
of Pennsylvania, and whose early career somewhat resembled that of
the young _protégé_ who now made him his guide, philosopher, and
friend. West not only entertained him with encouraging accounts of
how he managed to climb to the heights of fame, but did all he could
to initiate him into “the philosophy of his art.” He continued his
studies in London from 1811 to 1815, and though his circumstances
were humble and unpretending, he regularly associated with several
of the greatest men in art and literature of that time, and in his
letters and pursuits gave clear indications of a great future. After a
year’s study in London he wrote to his mother that his passion for art
was so firmly rooted that no human power could destroy it, and that
the more he studied it, the greater he thought was its claim to the
appellation of divine. His enthusiasm was not quenched by either penury
or disappointment. In 1814 he was induced by some friends to visit
Bristol, in the hope of getting some employment that would replenish
his purse, but he found that empty praise was the only recompense that
his labours could command. He accordingly returned to London, where he
was encouraged by the approbation of such severe judges as West and
Allston.
Having been allowed to witness West working at some of his historic
pictures, he determined to design and execute a large painting of his
own, and selected as his subject _The Dying Hercules_. Allston, who
was then engaged on his _Restoration of the Dead Man to Life_, told
him that he had first modelled his subject in clay, and suggested that
Morse should do likewise. The advice was followed. A model of Hercules
was made, and West, on accidentally seeing it, praised its vigour and
finish, remarking to his son that it showed that a true painter is a
sculptor also. The Society of Arts, Adelphi, was then offering a gold
medal for the best specimen of sculpture, and Morse was advised to
finish his model and send it to the Society for competition. In the
few days that remained before the competition began he finished the
model, and it succeeded in winning the prize, which was presented by
the Duke of Norfolk, then President of the Society. When his picture of
_The Dying Hercules_ was ready he went with it to West, who examined
it very carefully. In after years Morse was accustomed to tell his
friends that he had worked hard at the picture, and was so satisfied
with it that he expected to receive commendation from West. “Very
good, very good,” said West, as he handed it back, “go on and finish
it.” Somewhat taken aback, Morse, in a hesitating manner, said it was
finished. “Oh no, no,” said West, “see there, and there, and there, the
finish is imperfect; there’s much work to be done yet, go on and finish
it.” Morse quickly appreciated the defects pointed out by West; and
accordingly spent another week in perfecting his drawing. He then took
it to West with a feeling of confidence that it was finished. West was
more profuse than ever with his praise, but concluded by repeating his
former advice, “Go on and finish it.” “Is it not finished?” inquired
the almost discouraged student. “See,” replied West, “you have not
marked that muscle, nor the articulation of the finger joints.” A few
days more were spent in supplying the deficiencies pointed out by this
exacting critic. When it was again presented for examination, West
first praised it and then said, “Go on and finish it, young man,” to
which the young man in despair replied, “I cannot finish it.” West,
no doubt observing that patience has its limits, patted him on the
shoulder, and good-humouredly said: “Well, I have tried you long
enough; but you have learned more by this drawing than you would have
done in double the time by a dozen half finished beginnings.” He went
on to explain the importance of careful attention to the most minute
details, and to impress on him the value of thorough work as the secret
of success and fame, declaring that it was not numerous drawings but
the character of one that made a thorough painter. The picture in
question received much praise at the Royal Academy.
Encouraged by these results, Morse next painted a picture of the
_Judgment of Jupiter in the case of Apollo, Marpessa, and Idas_, which
was intended to compete for the gold medal and fifty-guinea prize
offered by the Royal Academy in 1814. But an untoward event frustrated
this design. When he left America it was with the intention of being
away only three years. It was now his fourth year of absence; and
his circumstances were so pressing and his means so scanty that he
left England at once, offering the picture to the Royal Academy for
exhibition through West. The Royal Academy, however, refused to admit
it because the artist did not present it personally. West, who had
urged Morse to remain in England, and who was then President of the
Academy, afterwards wrote to him that if he had remained he had no
doubt that the picture would have taken the prize.
If these early efforts did not replenish the artist’s purse, they
probably enriched his mind. Fénelon says that “the mind of a great
painter teems with the thoughts and sentiments of the heroes he is to
represent; he is carried back to the ages in which they lived, and
is present to the circumstances they were placed in; but, with this
fervid enthusiasm, he possesses also a judgment that restrains and
regulates it: so that his whole work, however bold and animated, is
perfectly consonant to propriety and truth.” While therefore Morse
was zealously prosecuting an art which he was destined eventually to
abandon for a new and untrodden avenue to fame and fortune, his early
labours, by their reflex action, may have tended to mould those moral
and intellectual qualities which were needed to carry him through
the trials of after years, and which in the end won for him “heroic
honours.”
Returning to America in the autumn of 1815 full of hope in his success
as an artist, he opened rooms in Boston where he exhibited his
_Judgment of Jupiter_ and other pictures; but though many visitors
came to view it and the people of the town treated him in a hospitable
manner, no one made an offer for the great picture,--a disappointment
which he keenly felt. Pressure of circumstances thus led him to return
to his first essay--portrait painting, which he practised with some
success in New England in 1817. Next year he went to Charlestown where
his uncle Dr. Finley resided, and where he soon obtained lucrative
employment. On October 1st, 1818, he married Lucretia P. Walker, of
Concord, New Hampshire, who was described as the beauty of the town. He
resided in Charlestown four years. During these years his reputation
as a painter continued to rise, but it did not enrich him. In 1821-2
he was engaged in painting a celebrated picture of the House of
Representatives at Washington. It measured eight feet by nine feet,
and contained eighty portraits. Though showing much artistic merit, it
was not a pecuniary success. The first purchaser of it was an English
gentleman. In 1825 the New York Corporation gave him an order to paint
a portrait of General Lafayette, that “veteran of liberty,” whom
Lamartine afterwards painted in words as “tall in stature, noble, pale,
cold in aspect with a reserved look, which appeared to veil mysterious
thoughts; with few gestures, restrained and caressing; a weak voice
without accent, more accustomed to confidential whisperings than
oratorical explosions; with a sober, studied, and elegant elocution
wherein memory was more conspicuous than inspiration; he was neither
a statesman, nor a soldier, nor an orator, but an historical figure,
without warmth, without colour, without life, but not without prestige;
detached from the midst of a picture of another age, and reappearing in
a new one.” The acquaintance of Morse with this remarkable man ripened
into friendship. This full-length portrait, for which he was to be paid
liberally, filled him with joyful anticipations, but scarcely had he
begun the work when he received news of his wife’s death. This was a
crushing blow to him; and although the portrait satisfied the General,
the artist declared that it was finished under such unfavourable
circumstances that it was not a just specimen of his work. In 1826 he
organised in New York the National Academy of the Arts of Design--an
association of artists which proved a lasting success, and of which he
was elected president in 1827. At the New York Athenæum he delivered
the first course of lectures in America on the fine arts.
While thus assiduously pursuing his favourite vocation, his mind was by
no means so absorbed in it as to exclude all other subjects. He even
tried other avenues to fortune. In 1817 he, along with his brother,
Sidney, took out patents for three machines which they had invented for
the pumping of water, and upon which they had bestowed much labour in
the expectation of reaping a profitable return. They did not, however,
succeed. Undeterred by disappointment, he next invented in 1823 a
machine for carving marble, of which he formed high hopes which again
were doomed to disappointment. Both as a mechanical inventor and as an
artist the coveted prize of fortune seemed to elude his grasp.
CHAPTER II.
“A man may turn whither he pleases, and undertake anything
whatsoever, but he will always return to the path which
nature has once prescribed for him.”--GOETHE.
“It is well that the beaten ways of the world get trodden into mud:
we are thus forced to seek new paths and pick out new lines of
life.” Of this saying the life of Professor Morse affords a striking
illustration, and we are now approaching the time when observation
should be taken of the circumstances that led to his leaving the beaten
track in which he had hitherto been endeavouring to attain distinction
and fortune. In 1822 he took a residence near that of his old college
friend, Professor Benjamin Silliman, whose lectures he had attended
in 1808-10, and with whom he had since continued on very friendly
terms. Being now neighbours, they were in the habit of communicating
to each other the latest news in science and art. Professor Morse was
often in the laboratory of Professor Silliman, and there witnessed
the latest experiments in electrical science. Professor Silliman has
stated that at that time he possessed Dr. Robert Hare’s “splendid
galvanic calorimeter,” by means of which he exhibited many interesting
and beautiful results. Another friend was Professor James F. Dana,
with whom he was also on intimate terms. Professor Dana was accustomed
to visit Morse’s room, and to give him accounts of his experiments
in electricity, which at that time was his favourite theme. In the
winter of 1826-7 Professor Morse attended a course of lectures on
electro-magnetism given by Professor Dana in the New York University.
In these lectures not only were the latest discoveries in science
described, but experiments were performed with apparatus constructed
for the purpose. Among other things Professor Dana stated that “a
spiral placed round a piece of soft iron bent into the form of a
horseshoe renders it strongly and powerfully magnetic when an electric
charge is passing through it.” This experiment he illustrated; and when
in after years the early knowledge of Professor Morse in reference to
electricity was challenged, he was able to produce the apparatus then
used and to describe the experiments of Professor Dana, who died in
1827.
But just as the interest in his old study was thus revived, he
came within sight of the position he had long coveted. He was now
a successful artist. In New York he had many eminent friends and
wealthy patrons. Work was abundant, and prices were increasing. All
that appeared to him necessary to his continued success was greater
proficiency in his art. In order to gain this, he resolved to visit
Italy--the land of painters; and on his announcing his intention to
do so, a score of influential friends gave him commissions to paint
pictures for them there. He accordingly left New York in November,
1829, and proceeded first to England, where he visited his old friend
Leslie, now in the sunshine of prosperity, and several other men
eminent in art and literature. He then went to Paris, and arrived in
Rome in the latter part of February, 1830. After spending a year and a
half in Italy, enjoying her art treasures, he returned to Paris, where
he renewed his acquaintance with General Lafayette, and exerted himself
on behalf of the poor Poles, whose sufferings were then attracting
attention. But his chief work in Paris was a painting of the interior
of the Louvre, wherein he copied the most remarkable paintings on the
walls. In the autumn of 1832 he returned to America, and his voyage
back was the turning point in his career, He sailed from Havre for New
York on October 1, 1832; and it was during that voyage on board the
_Sully_ that he conceived the idea of a recording telegraph.
Among the passengers was Dr. Charles T. Jackson, who was previously
a stranger to Morse, but who afterwards claimed some share in the
credit of the invention--a claim which Professor Morse repeatedly and
emphatically repudiated. In his account of its origin, Professor Morse
said:--“I have a distinct recollection of the manner, the place, and
the moment when the thought of making an electric wire the means of
communicating intelligence first came into my mind and was uttered.
It was at the table in the cabin, just after we had completed the
usual repast at mid-day. Dr. Jackson was on one side of the table
and I upon the other. We were conversing on the recent scientific
discoveries in electro-magnetism and the experiments of Ampère with the
electro-magnet. Dr. Jackson was describing the length of wire in the
coil of a magnet, and the question was asked by one of the passengers
whether the electricity was not retarded by the length of the wire.
Dr. Jackson replied in the negative, stating that electricity passed
simultaneously over any known length of wire, and alluded to the
experiment by which Franklin made many miles in circuit to ascertain
the velocity of electricity, but could observe no difference of time
between the touch at one extremity and the spark at the other. I then
remarked that this being so, if the presence of electricity could be
made visible in any desired part of the circuit, I saw no reason why
intelligence might not be transmitted instantaneously by electricity.
Dr. Jackson gave his assent that it was possible. The conversation was
not diverted by a remark of mine from the details of the experiments
Dr. Jackson was describing for the purpose of obtaining a spark from
a magnet, nor was this thought of the telegraph again mentioned till
I introduced the subject the next day. While Dr. Jackson’s mind was
during the voyage more occupied with other branches of science, of
geology, and anatomy, the thought which I had conceived took firm
possession of my mind, and occupied the wakeful hours of the night; for
I used to report to Dr. Jackson and the other passengers my progress,
and to ask questions in regard to the best mode of ascertaining
the presence of electricity. I had devised a system of signs and
constructed a species of type (which I drew out in my sketch-book) by
which to regulate the passage of electricity; but I had not settled the
best mode of causing the electricity to mark. Several methods suggested
themselves to me, such as causing a puncture to be made in paper by
the passage of a spark between two disconnected parts, which I soon
discarded as impracticable. I asked Dr. Jackson if there was not some
mode of decomposition which could be turned to account. Dr. Jackson
suggested an experiment which we agreed should be tried together as
soon as possible after landing, but which we never made.” He preserved
the pocket-book containing his first crude plan of an alphabet of
signs, which became the basis of the Morse alphabet. So absorbed did
he become in his designs of the various parts of the scheme that sleep
forsook him, and it was after a few days brooding over it that he
exhibited and explained his designs to his companions. As the voyage
came to a close he said to the Captain: “Well, if you hear of the
telegraph one of these days as the wonder of the world, remember that
the discovery was made on board the good ship _Sully_”--a remark which
Captain Pell never forgot.
On landing at New York in November, 1832, after a voyage which lasted
six weeks, he was met by his two brothers, Richard and Sidney. On the
way to the house of Richard C. Morse, who was editor of the _New York
Observer_, he told both his brothers that during the voyage he had
conceived an important invention, which, he declared, would astonish
the world, and of the success of which he was perfectly sanguine. He
told them that he had invented a means of communicating intelligence
by electricity, whereby a message could be written down in a permanent
manner at a distance from the sender. He also took from his pocket the
sketch-book in which he had drawn the kind of characters he intended to
make his recording apparatus mark on paper, and he likewise showed them
drawings of portions of his electro-magnetic machinery. His brothers
were so impressed with his earnestness of purpose that they allowed him
the use of an upper room in a house in New York, where he worked, and
cooked, and slept. He has stated himself that scarcely a day had passed
after his return before he commenced the construction of his invention
from the plans and drawings made on board the ship. At that time he
thought it necessary to embody the signs to be recorded or printed in a
kind of type, which were to regulate the requisite opening and closing
of the circuit in order to mark or imprint the points or signs upon a
strip of paper at the desired intervals of time. Hence a mould of brass
was made and a quantity of type cast before the close of the year 1832.
The rest of the machinery, except a single cup battery, a few yards of
wire, and a train of wheels of a wooden clock, which he adapted to the
service of unrolling the strip of paper, “I was compelled,” he says,
“from the necessities of my profession, to leave in the condition of
drawings till I found a more permanent resting place. From November,
1832, till the summer of 1835, I had to change my residence three
times, and was wholly without the pecuniary means for putting together
and embodying the various parts of my invention in one whole.” In 1835
his prospects became more auspicious. He was appointed professor of
the literature of the Arts of Design in New York University, and thus
obtained a more commodious and more permanent residence. He says that
when he took possession of his new home in the new building of New
York City University in July, 1835, he lost not a day in collecting
the parts of his apparatus and putting into practical form the first
rude instrument intended to demonstrate the working of his invention.
“I was favoured with a little leisure from the unfinished condition of
the university building, which impeded the access of visitors to my
apartments for my usual professional duties. With the aid of a single
cup battery, I ascertained as early as 1834, previous to my removal to
the university, that no visible effect was produced upon numerous salts
which I submitted to trial by putting them in simple contact with the
wire charged with electricity. I succeeded, however, in 1836 in marking
by chemical decomposition when the electricity was passed through the
moistened paper or cloth, but the process was attended with so many
inconveniences that it was laid aside for the moment, not abandoned,
that I might give my attention more directly to an electro-magnetic
mode of recording.” In accounting for the slowness in completing his
instrument and the rudeness of the one first constructed, he says:
“The electro-magnet was not an instrument found for sale in the
shops, as it is to-day; insulated wire was nowhere to be obtained
except in small quantities, as bonnet wire of iron bound round with
cotton thread. Copper wire, which was not in use for that purpose,
was sold in the shops by the pound or yard at high prices and also in
very limited quantities. To form my electro-magnet, I was under the
necessity of procuring from the blacksmith a small rod of iron bent
in a horseshoe form; of purchasing a few yards of copper wire, and of
winding upon it by hand its cotton thread insulation before I could
construct the rude helices of a magnet. I had already purchased a cheap
wooden clock, and adapted the train of wheels to the rate of movement
required for the ribbon of paper.... At the time of the construction
of my first instrument I had not conceived the idea of the present key
manipulator dependent on the skill of the operator, but I presumed that
the accuracy of imprinting signs could only be secured by mechanical
arrangements and by automatic process. Hence the first conception on
board the ship of embodying the signs in type mathematically divided
into points and spaces. Hence also the construction of the type
mould, and the casting of the first type in 1832.” With the imperfect
apparatus thus brought together, he was able to satisfy himself that
the paper ribbon could be moved at a regular speed, while the requisite
motion of a lever that moved a pencil made a succession of marks on the
paper.
Yet though he was confident that his invention had in it the elements
of success, he wanted to do with it what Benjamin West repeatedly
told him to do with his picture of Hercules--“finish it”--before
exhibiting it. He was conscious that it was in too rude a form to be
seen by the public; and he has himself recorded that his means were
too limited to admit of his constructing such a finished instrument
as would insure success if he ventured to invite public attention to
it. He was still painting for his living; and in order to economise
both his means and his time he continued to work, eat, and sleep in
the same room. He purchased his provisions in small quantities, and
in order to conceal his poverty he generally went for his food in
the evening as well as cooked it for himself. During the year 1837
his prospects began to brighten. In the early part of that year he
succeeded in solving the problem of working his apparatus at a greater
distance than he expected a single current to be effective. He says
that “between 1835, when the first instrument was completed, and 1837
I had devised a means of providing against a foreshadowed exigency
when the conductors were extended, not to a few hundred feet in length
in a room, but to stations many miles distant. I was not ignorant
of the possibility that the electro-magnet might be so enfeebled,
when charged from a great distance, as to be inoperative for direct
printing. This possibility was a subject of much thought and anxiety
long previous to the year 1836. I had before then conceived and drawn
a plan for obviating it; but the plan was so simple that it scarcely
needed a drawing to illustrate it; a few words sufficed to make it
comprehended. If the magnet, say at twenty miles distant, became so
enfeebled as to be unable to print directly, it yet might have power
sufficient to close and open another circuit of twenty miles further,
and so on till it reached the required station. This plan was often
spoken of to my friends previous to the year 1836, but early in
January, 1836, after showing the original instrument in operation to
my friend and colleague, Professor Gale, I imparted to him this plan
of a relay battery and magnet to resolve his doubts regarding the
practicability of my producing magnetic power sufficient to write
at a distance.” In like manner Professor Gale says: “From April to
September, 1837, Professor Morse and myself were engaged together in
the work of preparing magnets, winding wire, constructing batteries,
&c., in the university for an experiment on a larger but still very
limited scale in the little leisure which we each had to spare. We were
both at that time much cramped for funds. The labours of Professor
Morse at this period were mostly directed to modifications of his
instrument for marking, contriving the best modes of marking, varying
the pencil or pen, using plumbago and ink, and varying also the form
of paper from a slip to a sheet. In the latter part of August, 1837,
the operation of the instruments was shown to numerous visitors at
the university. It was early a question between Professor Morse and
myself what was the limit of the magnetic power to move a lever. I
expressed a doubt whether the lever could be moved by this power at
a distance of twenty miles; and my settled conviction was that it
could not be done with sufficient force to mark characters on paper
at a hundred miles distant. To this Professor Morse was accustomed
to reply, ‘If I can succeed in working a magnet ten miles, I can go
round the globe.’ He often said to me: ‘It matters not how delicate
the movement may be, if I can obtain it at all, it is all I want.’ He
always expressed his confidence of success in propagating magnetic
power through any distance of electric conductors which circumstances
might render desirable. This plan was often explained to me. Suppose,
said Professor Morse, that in experimenting on twenty miles of wire, we
should find the power of magnetism so feeble that it will move a lever
with certainty but a hairs breadth; that might be insufficient, it may
be, to write or print, yet it would be sufficient to close and break
another or second circuit twenty miles further on, and a second circuit
could be made in the same manner to break and close a third circuit
twenty miles further, and so on round the globe. This general statement
of the means to be resorted to was shown to me more in detail early in
the spring of the year 1837.” The plan as explained to Professor Gale
was that the current on reaching the end of one conducting wire, round
which wire was wound so as to form that end into an electro-magnet,
could attract to it an armature (or movable hand) of a contiguous wire,
and the hand thus moved being connected with a fresh battery, it both
continued the circuit and replenished the current. After a few weeks of
trial the use of metal blocks or types to regulate the recording marks
was abandoned, and although the construction of the handle, called the
manipulator, for regulating the transmission at intervals of sufficient
electricity to produce the marks, was a later improvement, he ever
afterwards declared that his first rude instrument had the leading
features that characterised the more perfect apparatus of later years;
or to use his own appropriate words, “It lisped its first accents and
automatically recorded them in New York. It was a feeble child indeed,
ungainly in its dress, stammering in its speech. But the maladies of
its unfledged infancy were mainly the results of its parents struggles
against poverty.”
Here let us pause and see him as others saw him. Let us see how some
of his own friends viewed his labours as an artist and inventor
during those times of adversity which the gods are said to view with
complacency. One of his pupils, Mr. Daniel Huntington, who afterwards
became President of the Academy of Fine Arts, says: “The studio of
Professor Morse was indeed a laboratory. Vigorous, life-like portraits,
poetic and historic groups, occasionally grew upon his easel; but
there were many hours--yes, days--when, absorbed in study among
galvanic batteries and mysterious lines of wire, he seemed to us like
an alchemist of the middle ages in search of the philosopher’s stone.
I can never forget the occasion when he called his pupils together to
witness one of the first, if not the first, successful experiment with
the electric telegraph. It was in the winter of 1835-6. I can see now
that rude instrument constructed with an old stretching frame, a wooden
clock, a home-made battery, and the wire stretched many times round
the walls of the studio. With eager interest we gathered about it, as
our master explained its operation, while with a click, click, click,
the pencil, by a succession of dots and lines, recorded the messages
in cipher. The idea was born, but we had little faith. To us it seemed
a dream of enthusiasm. We grieved to see the sketch upon the canvas
untouched.” In like manner, Mr. William Cullen Bryant, who had become
acquainted with Morse some years before the telegraph entered his mind,
says: “He was then an artist, devoted to a profession in which he might
have attained high rank had he not, fortunately for his country and the
world, left it for a pursuit in which he has risen to more peculiar
eminence. Even then in the art of painting, his tendency to mechanical
invention was conspicuous. His mind, as I remember, was strongly
impelled to analyse the processes of his art--to give to them a certain
scientific precision, to reduce them to fixed rules, to refer effects
to clearly defined causes, so as to put it in the power of an artist to
produce them at pleasure and with certainty, instead of blindly groping
for them, and in the end owing them to some happy accident or some
instinctive effort of which he could give no account. The mind of Morse
was an organising mind. He showed this in a remarkable manner when he
brought together the artists of New York, then a little band mostly of
young men whose profession was far from being honoured as it now is,
reconciled the disagreements which he found existing among them, and
founded an association to be managed solely by themselves--the Academy
of the Arts of Design, which has since grown to such noble dimensions,
and which has given to the artists a consideration in the community
far higher than that before conceded to them.... It was not till 1835
that Morse found means to demonstrate to the public the practicability
of his invention by the telegraph constructed on an economical scale
and set up at the New York University. The public, however, still
seemed indifferent. There was none of the loud applause, none of that
enthusiastic reception which it now seems natural should attend the
birth of so brilliant a discovery. I confess I was not without my
share in the general misgiving, and although the processes employed
were exceedingly curious and highly creditable to the inventor, I had
my fears that the new telegraph might prove little more than a most
ingenious scientific pastime easily getting out of order in consequence
of the delicacy of its construction, not capable of being used to
advantage for great distances, and for short ones only suitable for
messages in their most abbreviated form. The inventor, however, saw
further than we all, and I think never lost courage. Yet I remember
that some three or four years after this, he said to me with some
disappointment, ‘Wheatstone in England and Steinheil in Bavaria, who
have their electric telegraphs, are afforded the means of bringing
forward their methods, while to my invention of earlier date than
theirs my country seems to show no favour.’”
An incident which began in 1835 and extended into 1836 throws some
light on the character and sympathies of the disappointed inventor.
In August of the latter year he published a little book entitled:
_The Proscribed German Student: being a Sketch of some interesting
Incidents in the Life and melancholy Death of the late Lewis Clausing;
to which is added a treatise on the Jesuits: the posthumous work of
Lewis Clausing_. In the Introduction, Professor Morse stated that in
the autumn of 1835 a stranger and foreigner came to his house and
introduced himself to him, apologising for his interruption, and
asking whether he was the author of a work on Foreign Conspiracy.[9]
On Professor Morse replying in the affirmative, Clausing asked him
as a favour to peruse a manuscript with a view to recommending it to
a publisher. Asked why he had selected Morse to pass an opinion on
the book, Clausing replied that in his own country, Heidelberg, he
had incurred the enmity of the Jesuits because he did not raise his
cap when the procession of the Host was passing in the street. In
consequence of that offence an ecclesiastic left the procession and
struck off his cap in a passionate manner. Clausing afterwards went to
the ecclesiastic’s house, and shot him in the face, but not fatally.
After being in prison awaiting sentence for eleven months, he escaped
in 1833, and since then the Jesuits had pursued him wherever he went,
in France, Brussels, and London, and now in America. Having in the
West met with Morse’s work on Foreign Conspiracies against the United
States, he found out the author, “for,” he said “if there is a man in
the world who I can be sure is not a Jesuit, it is the writer who signs
himself Brutus.”
Professor Morse gives an interesting and sympathetic account of the
way he treated this poor young man, who called on him one evening at
the New York University, but not finding him at home, wrote a letter
to him in which he construed the most ordinary circumstances into
plots, and concluded by saying that he saw daily more and more that
nothing was so dangerous as to be an honest man among rogues; yet he
never had done and never would do anything of which he could have the
remotest reason to be ashamed. The letter ended “with true admiration
for your noble character.” The young man, an accomplished scholar, aged
twenty-five years, afterwards shot himself with a pistol while walking
on a public promenade. His work on the Jesuits displayed great research
and a considerable acquaintance with the literature and literary
characters of his day. Professor Morse said of him that “he conversed
in English fluently, with less foreign accent than was usually met with
in foreigners of twenty years residence in the country, and he wrote a
clear, fair, and neat hand. In his manners he was retiring and modest,
and in his address he had that peculiar courtesy which belongs to
well-educated Germans. He had a fine countenance, a steady expression,
with a remarkable dark eye, which fixed itself steadily upon yours
without winking, yet without severity; it was mild, and, in the last
interviews with me, melancholy. He seemed particularly sensitive to
kindness, and when, in the last interview, I urged him freely to
call upon me at all times and unburden his bosom of its troubles,
and endeavoured to cheer him by sympathy, he wept like a child.” The
treatise on the Jesuits, which Professor Morse published immediately
after the death of its author, filled nearly 200 small pages, and it
was preceded by an account of its author’s career from the pen of the
Professor; who thus showed that at the most trying period of his life,
when absorbed himself in secret cares and beset by chilling poverty, he
could freely spend his time and money in promoting the last wishes of a
poor foreigner.
In 1837 circumstances occurred which hastened his preparations for the
public display of his telegraph. In February of that year the House
of Representatives resolved to instruct the Secretary to the Treasury
to report next session upon the propriety of establishing a system
of telegraphs in the United States. A copy of the circular making
inquiries on the subject was sent to Professor Morse, who in reply gave
a detailed estimate of the cost of his telegraph and a history of its
invention. In April of the same year it was announced in the newspapers
that a wonderful telegraph had been invented by two Frenchmen; and
Professor Morse and his friends took alarm lest the invention of his
electro-magnetic telegraph had become known and appropriated by other
hands. It turned out afterwards that the announcement in question
referred to a visual telegraph and was of no importance, but it had the
useful effect of rousing Professor Morse to more energetic steps for
the purpose of bringing his invention creditably before the public.
He also consented to a public announcement of the existence of his
invention in the _New York Observer_, and from April to September,
1837, he and Professor Gale were busy preparing magnets, winding wire,
and constructing batteries, with the view of making public experiments
on a larger scale.
No sooner had news of the successful operation of his telegraph, as
exhibited privately to his friends, begun to spread about than a fresh
source of perplexity arose from an unexpected quarter. Dr. Jackson,
a chemist and geologist of Boston, now came forward and publicly
claimed to be a joint inventor of the telegraph, alleging that he had
suggested it to Professor Morse on board the _Sully_ in 1832. He said
that during the voyage he had “the pleasure of becoming acquainted
with S.F.B. Morse, a distinguished American artist, who is very
ingenious in mechanical inventions. I was enthusiastically describing
the various wonderful properties of electricity and electro-magnetism
before Professor Morse, Mr. Rivers, Mr. Fisher, and others at the table
after dinner while the company were listeners, and, as it appeared
to me, were somewhat incredulous, for they knew little or nothing on
the subject. I mentioned among many other things that I had seen the
electric spark pass instantaneously, without any appreciable loss of
time, four hundred times round the great lecture room at the Sorbonne.
This evidently surprised the company, and I then asked if they had not
read of Dr. Franklin’s experiments in which he had caused electricity
to go a journey of twenty miles by means of a wire stretched up the
Thames, the water being a portion of the circuit. The answer was from
Professor Morse that he had not read it. After a short discussion as to
the instantaneous nature of the passage, one of the party, Mr. Rivers
or Mr. Fisher, said it would be well if we could send news in the same
rapid manner; to which Professor Morse replied, ‘Why cannot we?’ I then
proceeded to inform Professor Morse in reply to his questions, how it
might be done. First, I observed that electricity might be made visible
in any part of a circuit by dividing the wire, when a spark would be
seen at the intersection. Secondly, that it could be made to perforate
paper, if interposed between the disconnected wires. Thirdly, that
saline compounds might be decomposed so as to produce colours on paper.
The second and third projects were finally adopted for future trial,
since they could be made to furnish permanent records.... I observed
that it would be easy to devise a method of reading the markings. Here
the conversation changed for a while, and was resumed by Professor
Morse next day after breakfast. Professor Morse then questioned me
again on every point of the invention, and said he had been thinking
much about it. With pencil in hand, he proposed a method of deciphering
the markings, the dots and marks being made regularly. This was a
subject of discussion, and we both took part in it, but I acknowledge
that Professor Morse did most in planning the numeration of the marks.”
It is evident that even if the accuracy of the above version of the
conversations was unquestionable, the information which Dr. Jackson
professed to give to Professor Morse was substantially the same that
Morse had learned previously.
To the claim thus set up by Dr. Jackson Professor Morse gave an instant
and categorical denial. He said: “The discovery belongs to me, and it
must of necessity belong exclusively to one. If by an experiment which
we proposed to try together, we had mutually fixed upon a successful
mode of conveying intelligence, then might we with some propriety
be termed mutual or joint inventors; but as we have neither tried
any experiment together, nor has the one proposed to be tried by Dr.
Jackson been adopted by me, I cannot see how we can be called mutual
inventors. Dr. Jackson is not aware perhaps that the mode I have
carried into effect, after many and various experiments, with the
assistance of my colleague, Professor Gale, was never mentioned either
by him or to him. The plan of marking by my peculiar type, and the use
which I make of the electro-magnet, were entirely original with me.
All the machinery has been elaborated without a hint from Dr. Jackson
of any kind in the remotest degree. I am the sole inventor. It is to
Professor Gale that I am most of all indebted for substantial and
effective aid in many of my experiments; but he prefers no claim of
any kind.” Dr. Jackson, on the 17th of September, 1837, admitted that
the telegraph he had suggested would require twenty-four wires for
conductors. Professor Morse replied that his telegraph was adapted to
the use of one wire, or a single circuit, a method which Dr. Jackson
had declared to be impracticable. Dr. Jackson admitted that among those
who heard his conversations with Professor Morse was William Pell, the
Captain of the _Sully_, who on being asked to give his version of the
matter wrote to the Professor as follows:--“I am happy to say I have
a distinct remembrance of your suggesting as a thought newly occurred
to you the possibility of a telegraphic communication being effected
by electric wires. As the passage progressed and your idea developed
itself, it became frequently a subject of conversation. Difficulty
after difficulty was suggested as obstacles to its operation, which
your ingenuity still laboured to remove till your invention, passing
from its first crude state through different grades of improvement,
was in seeming matured to an available instrument.” In a subsequent
letter Captain Pell said it was a matter of great astonishment to him
that a fellow-passenger on the _Sully_ from Havre in October, 1832,
should attempt to contest with Professor Morse the claim of having
been the inventor of the electric telegraph; the impression rested on
his mind with the freshness and force of conviction that Professor
Morse alone was the originator of the invention. Other witnesses who
were on board the _Sully_ gave equally emphatic testimony in support
of his originality. When the question of originality was afterwards
investigated in a court of law, Mr. Justice Woodbury, after examining
all the authorities on the subject, stated that from 1832 forward
Professor Morse was entitled to the high credit of making attempts to
construct a practical machine for popular and commercial use, which
would communicate at a distance by electro-magnetism, and would record
quickly and cheaply what was communicated, and that among sixty-two
competitors to the discovery of the electric telegraph up to 1838,
Professor Morse alone in 1837 seemed to have reached the most perfect
result desirable for public and practical use.
While rival claims were being made to the invention of the telegraph,
Professor Morse succeeded in securing protection by patent in his own
country. He had filed his caveat in the United States on October 6,
1837, and six months afterwards applied for a patent, which he obtained
in 1840. Just before taking proceedings to obtain patent rights, some
friends of the right sort came to his assistance. In September, 1837,
he showed his apparatus and explained his designs to Professor Torrey,
Mr. Alfred Vail, and others; and their approbation had a stimulating
effect. Mr. Alfred Vail and his brother, after making a thorough
examination of it, became so enthusiastic about its success that they
offered to supply the impecunious inventor with the means requisite
to try experiments on a larger scale. This ready assistance when he
was in need he never ceased to praise. Many years after his telegraph
was in universal use, and when he was being crowned with the highest
honours of his life, he stated that the inventor must seek and employ
the skilled mechanician in his workshop to put his invention into a
practical form, and for this purpose some pecuniary means are required
as well as mechanical skill. Both these he received from Messrs. Vail.
These gentlemen came to the help of “the unclothed infant, and with
their funds and mechanical skill put it into a condition creditable to
appear before the nation.” For this valuable assistance Professor Morse
assigned to Mr. Vail one fourth share in the patent; and they continued
to work together with the greatest good will. The first really good
Morse instrument was made by Mr. Vail, assisted by his father and
brother, and their first experiment was made with three miles of
copper wire placed round a room of Vail’s factory at the Speedwell
ironworks, Morristown, New Jersey, on January 6, 1838. Encouraged
by its success, the inventor and his partners invited a number of
prominent citizens to witness the performances of the telegraph in
the Geological Cabinet of the University in Washington Square, New
York, on January 24, 1838; and so much interest was excited by its
achievements on that occasion that a fortnight later the Committee
of Sciences and Arts of the Franklin Institute inspected it. As an
authoritative and permanent record of its stage of development at that
time their report is instructive. They stated that “the instrument was
exhibited to them in the Hall of the Institute, and every opportunity
given by Mr. Morse and his associate, Mr. Alfred Vail, to examine it
carefully and to judge of its operation. The instrument may be briefly
described as follows: (1) There is a galvanic battery of sixty pairs
of plates, set in action by a solution of sulphate of copper. (2) The
poles of this battery can be connected at pleasure with a circuit of
copper wire, which in the experiments we witnessed was ten miles in
length. The greater part of the wire was wound round two cylinders,
and the coils insulated from one another by being covered with cotton
thread. (3) In the middle of this circuit of wire,--that is, at what
was considered virtually a distance of five miles from the battery,
was the _register_. In this there is an electro-magnet, made of a bar
of soft iron bent in the form of a horseshoe, and surrounded by coils
of the wire which forms the circuit. The _keeper_ of this magnet is at
the short arm of a bent lever, at the end of the longer arm of which is
a fountain-pen. When the keeper is drawn against the magnet, the pen
comes in contact with a roll of paper wound round a cylinder, and makes
a mark with ink upon this paper. While the telegraph is in operation,
the cylinder which carries the paper is made to revolve slowly upon
its axis, by an apparatus like the kitchen jack, and is at the same
time moved forward, so that the pen if constantly in contact with the
paper would describe a spiral or helix upon its surface. (4) Near
the battery, at one of the stations, there is an interruption in the
circuit, the ends of the separated wire entering into two cups, near
to each other, containing mercury. Now if a small piece of bent wire
be introduced, with an end in each cup, the circuit will be completed,
the electro-magnet at the other station will be set in action, the
keeper will be drawn against it, and the pen will make a mark upon the
revolving paper. On the other hand, when the bent wire is removed from
the cups, the circuit will be interrupted, the electro-magnet will
instantly cease to act, the keeper will, by its weight, recede a small
distance from the magnet, the other end of the lever will rise and lift
the pen from the paper, and the marking will cease. (5) The successive
connections and interruptions of the circuit are executed by means
of an ingenious contrivance for depressing the arch of copper wire
into the cups of mercury, and raising it out of them. This apparatus
could not be described intelligibly without a figure; but its action
was simple and very satisfactory. (6) Two systems of signals were
exhibited, one representing numbers, the other letters. The numbers
consist of nothing more than dots made on the paper, with suitable
spaces intervening. Thus ... .. ..... would represent 325, and may
either indicate this number itself, or a word in a dictionary, prepared
for the purpose, to which the number is attached. The alphabetical
signals are made up of combinations of dots and of lines of different
lengths. There are several subsidiary parts of this telegraph which
the Committee have not thought it necessary to mention particularly.
Among these is the use of a second electro-magnet at the register,
to give warning by the ringing of a bell, and to set in motion the
apparatus for turning the cylinder. The operation of the telegraph
as exhibited to us was very satisfactory. The power given to the
magnet at the register, through a length of wire of ten miles, was
abundantly sufficient for the movements required to mark the signals.
The communication of this power was instantaneous. The time required
to make the signals was as short, at least, as that necessary in the
ordinary telegraphs. It appears to the Committee therefore that the
possibility of using telegraphs upon this plan in actual practice is
not to be doubted, though difficulties may be anticipated which could
not be tested by the trials made with the model. One of these relates
to the insulation and protection of the wires, which are to pass over
many miles of distance to form the circuits between the stations. Mr.
Morse has proposed several plans,--the last being to cover the wires
with cotton thread, then varnish them thickly with gum-elastic, and
inclose the whole in leaden tubes. Doubts have been raised as to the
distance to which the electricity of an ordinary battery can be made
efficient; but the Committee think that no serious difficulty is to be
anticipated as to this point. The experiment with the wire wound in
a coil may not indeed be deemed conclusive; but one of the members
of the Committee assisted in an experiment in which a magnet was very
sensibly affected by a battery of a single pair through an insulated
wire of two miles and three quarters in length, of which the folds
were four inches apart; and when a battery of ten pairs was used water
was freely decomposed. An experiment is said to have been made with
success on the Birmingham and Manchester railroad through a circuit
of thirty miles in length. It may be proper to state that the idea of
using electro-magnetism for telegraphic purposes has presented itself
to several different individuals, and that it may be difficult to
settle among them the question of originality. The celebrated Gauss has
a telegraph of this kind in actual operation for communicating signals
between the University at Göttingen and the magnetic observatory in
the vicinity. Mr. Wheatstone of London has also been for some time
engaged in experiments on an electro-magnetic telegraph. But the plan
of Professor Morse is, so far as the Committee are informed, entirely
different from any of those devised by other individuals, all of which
act by giving different directions to magnetic needles, and would
therefore require several circuits of wires between all the stations.”
A month later the Committee of Commerce drew up their report to
Congress. They stated that, among the suggestions that had been
submitted, the electro-magnetic telegraph of Professor Morse was
pre-eminently interesting and wonderful; and that in addition to being
examined and confidently recommended by the Select Committee of the
Franklin Institute, it had been exhibited to the President of the
United States, to several heads of departments, members of Congress,
and a vast number of scientific and practical men from all parts of the
Union. All concurred, without a dissenting doubt, in admiration of the
ingenious and scientific character of the invention, and appeared to be
convinced as to “its great and incalculable practical importance and
usefulness to the country and ultimately to the world.” The Committee
also stated that Professor Morse concurred in saying that it would be
presumptuous to calculate or hold out promises as to what its whole
capacity for usefulness might be in either a political, commercial,
or social point of view if the electrical power on which its action
depended proved inefficient over long distances; but it was obvious,
they thought, that the influence of the invention among the people of
such a widely extended country, would, in the event of its success,
amount to “a revolution unsurpassed in moral grandeur by any discovery
that has been made in the arts and sciences from the most distant
period to which authentic history extends to the present day.” Such was
the language applied to the first experimental working of the telegraph
over ten miles of wire; nor did the Committee’s first impressions end
there. Our familiarity with the telegraph has divested it of novelty,
but it suggested to them thoughts which are still impressive and
beautiful. They said that, “with the means of almost instantaneous
communication between the most distant points of the country and
simultaneously between any given number of intermediate points, which
this invention contemplates, space for all purposes of information
will be completely annihilated between the States of the Union. The
citizens will be invested with and will reduce to daily and familiar
use an approach to the high attribute of ubiquity in a degree that the
human mind till recently had hardly dared to contemplate seriously as
belonging to human agency, from an instinctive feeling of religious
reverence and reserve of a power of such awful grandeur.” The Committee
concluded by recommending Congress to grant 30,000 dollars for the
making of an experiment on a much larger scale, say 100 miles.
To Professor Morse, who had toiled at the invention now and then for
fully five years amid many discouragements, everything now looked
encouraging. “I see nothing now,” he said, “but an unclouded prospect,
for which let us pay to Him who shows it to us the homage of grateful
and obedient hearts, with most earnest prayers for grace to use
prosperity aright.”
The next step thought necessary to insure the wide success anticipated
was the taking out of foreign patents; and for that purpose the
sanguine inventor and Mr. F. O. J. Smith, who had become a warm friend
of his, paid a visit to Europe. Mr. Smith was a member of the House of
Representatives, and as Chairman of the House Committee of Commerce, he
had in April, 1838, recommended Congress to grant 30,000 dollars for
the purpose of testing the telegraph over many miles. In after years
Professor Morse gave him “the credit of a just appreciation of the new
invention and of the zealous advocacy of an experimental essay, as well
as of inditing an admirably written report in its favour which was
signed by every member of the Committee, when in 1838 the telegraph
appeared in Washington a suppliant for the means to administer its
power.” This friend now accompanied the inventor to England, where
they applied for a patent. In England Messrs. Wheatstone and Cooke had
already obtained a patent for their needle telegraph; but as the Morse
telegraph was essentially different from theirs, he unhesitatingly
paid the usual fees and went through the preliminary formalities. To
his dismay, however, he found his application objected to before the
Attorney-General, whose sanction was requisite, on the ground that
his telegraph was not new. The arguments were heard on the 12th of
July, 1838, when Morse produced his instrument in order to show the
Attorney-General how different it was from the English telegraph; but
the Attorney-General held that it was unnecessary to examine it,
because the London _Mechanics’ Magazine_ for the previous February
had published an article from _Silliman’s_ (American) _Journal_ for
October, 1837, giving a description of the invention. This publication
was considered a valid reason for refusing a patent. Another hearing
was obtained, but it only confirmed the previous decision. While in
London on this business Morse was a spectator of the coronation of
Queen Victoria in Westminster Abbey.
In France a better reception was accorded to the inventor, who not only
got a patent without difficulty, but was loaded with compliments. Arago
brought his telegraph before the French Institute, where the greatest
men of the time, such as Humboldt and Guy Lussac, were profuse in
their admiration of it. But to make the patent valid in France it was
necessary that it should be worked there within two years; and this it
was found impossible to do. An agreement was made with the St. Germain
Railway Company to erect a line of telegraph upon their railroad, but
the Government having refused their permission, the project was dropped.
Though his visit to Paris was not attended with the results he desired,
an incident occurred which rendered it memorable and linked his name
with another discovery, which probably encouraged him to persevere
with his own. The American Consul introduced him to M. Daguerre,
who, in conjunction with M. Niepce, had just discovered the art of
photography, then known as “the new art.” The discovery of Daguerre
was causing a great sensation, but his method was kept a secret. The
two inventors agreed to show their inventions to each other, but
Professor Morse undertook not to disclose the art of photography just
then. Negotiations were going on between M. Daguerre and the French
Government with reference to the publication of the process, and the
result was that Daguerre agreed to disclose it in consideration of
the Government paying him a pension of 250_l._ a year and Niepce
166_l._ a year for life. M. Arago took a leading part in guaranteeing
the genuineness of the discovery. As soon as a bill conferring the
pensions passed the French Chambers, “the new art” was to be made
public, and M. Daguerre in January promised to send Professor Morse
a copy of his description as soon as published. It was not till
September that this took place, but Professor Morse, who had returned
to New York in April, 1839, was the first in America to receive a
copy of Daguerre’s own account of his discovery illustrated with six
diagrams. From these drawings Professor Morse was able to construct
the first photographic apparatus used in the United States; and the
first photograph taken with it was a view of the tower of the Church
of the Messiah on Broadway, as seen from a back-window of New York
University. The process was no sooner published than improvements were
made in it; and among the earliest improvers in America were Professor
Morse and Dr. J. W. Draper, professor of Chemistry in New York
University. Experiments which they made in a studio erected on the roof
of the University resulted in the publication next year of a paper by
Professor Draper, _On the Process of Daguerreotype, and its Application
to taking Portraits from the Life_. This was the announcement of a
great improvement. By the process of Daguerre the time of taking a
photograph at Paris varied from three to thirty minutes, and the human
face could only be photographed with the eyes shut. By Professor
Draper’s improvements portraits could be taken with the eyes open,
and instead of an average of fifteen minutes, it could be done in one
minute or less. Professor Draper stated that in portraits taken by his
process “the eye appears beautifully; the iris with sharpness, and the
white dot of light upon it with such strength and so much reality and
life as to surprise those who have never before seen it. Many are
persuaded that the pencil of the painter has been secretly employed to
give this finishing touch.” For six months Professor Morse acted as a
photographer, and was thus enabled to repay the “great expenses” he had
incurred in improving the process. He then abandoned photography for
telegraphy.
It thus appears that Professor Morse was the first lecturer on art in
America, the first sculptor from America who received foreign honours,
the first photographer in America, and the first inventor of the
recording telegraph.
The work now set before him was the introduction of the telegraph, and
to accomplish this work other five years were necessary. They were
five years of poverty and disappointment, occasionally brightened by
transient gleams of success. The petition to Congress for money to make
an experiment with it on a large scale had been thrown aside among the
unfinished business of the session, and it was not till 1842 that the
matter was again brought forward. At the close of 1841 the despairing
inventor said: “I have not a cent in the world. I am crushed for want
of means, and means of so trivial a character, too, that they who know
how to ask (which I do not) could obtain in a few hours. One year
more has gone for want of means. I have now ascertained that, however
unpromising were the times last session, if I could only have gone to
Washington, I could have got some aid to enable me to insure success at
the next session. As it is, although everything is favourable, although
I have no competition and no opposition--on the contrary although
every member of Congress, so far as I can learn, is favourable--yet I
fear all will fail because I am too poor to risk the trifling expenses
which my journey and residence in Washington will occasion me. I will
not run in debt if I lose the whole matter; so unless I have the means
from some source I shall be compelled, however reluctantly, to leave
it. Nothing but the consciousness that I have an invention which is to
mark an era in human civilisation, and which is to contribute to the
happiness of millions, would have sustained me through so many and such
lengthened trials of patience in proof of it.” He even said to one of
his art pupils that he was so destitute of money that he would be dead
next week from starvation; and on the pupil giving him ten dollars and
taking him to dinner, Morse said that was the first meal he had had for
twenty-four hours.
This appears to have been the darkest hour before the dawn; for in
the midst of his gloom and poverty he determined to make one more
experiment. He insulated a wire two miles long with hempen threads
saturated with pitch tar and surrounded with india-rubber; and this,
which he called the first submarine cable ever made, was laid in New
York harbour between Castle Garden and Governor’s Island on October
18, 1842. The wire was wound round a reel and placed in a boat; and in
the bright moonshine the Professor unwound and paid out the wire while
another man rowed the boat. Several signals passed through the wire;
but before he had an opportunity of exhibiting its operation to those
whom he wanted to convince, the wire was dragged up by the anchor of
another boat and part of it carried off by the sailors. But it was
not destroyed till he had satisfied himself that despatches could be
transmitted through it. He renewed the experiment two months afterwards
in the canal at Washington with complete success; and in after years he
ever spoke of these experiments, especially the first, as the birthtime
of submarine telegraphy. He received the gold medal of the American
Institute for this success.
Encouraged by the success of this experiment, he wrote a letter on
December 6, 1842, to the Hon. C. G. Ferris, a member of the House
Committee of Commerce, giving a minute account of his invention, and
asking that an appeal might be made through the Committee to Congress
for a grant to erect an experimental line of telegraph. Mr. Ferris at
once took up the subject, and a bill was drawn up appropriating 30,000
dollars for that purpose; but ere it came before Congress the inventor
was able to announce another discovery that strengthened his faith
in the marvellous power of the telegraph. In a letter dated January
17, 1843, he said: “Professor Fisher and myself made an important
discovery just before we left New York, namely, that several currents
of electricity will pass upon the same wire without interference either
in the same direction or in opposite directions. The discovery I have
at once reduced to practice. The wire for the two circuits which I use
for my two instruments in the Capitol is composed of three instead of
four threads.”
Five weeks after that announcement Mr. John Kennedy moved in Congress
to proceed with the bill making the grant for an experimental line.
Professor Morse was present in the gallery listening to a debate
which, though not very auspicious, was not devoid of humour. An
abridged report of the proceedings on the 27th of February, 1843,
states that on the motion of Mr. Kennedy, of Maryland, the Committee
took up the bill to authorise a series of experiments to be made in
order to test the merits of Morse’s Electro-Magnetic Telegraph--a bill
appropriating 30,000 dollars, to be expended under the direction of the
Postmaster-General. Mr. Cave Johnson said that, as the present Congress
had done much to encourage science, he did not wish to see the science
of mesmerism neglected and overlooked. He therefore proposed that
one-half the appropriation should be given to Mr. Pisk (a gentleman at
that time lecturing in Washington on mesmerism) to enable him to carry
on experiments as well as Professor Morse. Mr. Houston thought that
Millerism should also be included in the benefits of the appropriation.
Mr. Stanly had no objection to the appropriation for mesmeric
experiments, provided Mr. Cave Johnson would be the subject (Laughter.)
Mr. Cave Johnson retorted that he would have no objection provided Mr.
Stanly was the operator. (Much laughter.) Several gentlemen having
called for the reading of the amendment, the Clerk read thus: “Provided
that one half of the said sum shall be appropriated for trying mesmeric
experiments, under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury.”
Mr. Mason, rising to order, contended that the amendment was not
_bonâ fide_, and that such a proposal was calculated to injure the
character of the House. He appealed to the Chair to rule it out of
order; but the Chairman, declining to judge of the motives of members
in offering amendments, would not undertake to pronounce it not
_bonâ fide_. He said objections might be raised to it on the ground
that it was not sufficiently analogous in its character to the bill
under consideration, but in his opinion it would require a scientific
analysis to determine how far the magnetism of mesmerism was analogous
to that to be employed in telegraphs. (Laughter.) The amendment was
rejected, and in the end the bill was carried by a majority of six
votes--89 to 83. Professor Morse was accustomed afterwards to remark
that a “change of three votes would have consigned the invention to
oblivion.” “I was told at the time,” he also said, “by many personal
friends in the House, that the bill finally passed more out of
deference to my personal standing than from any just appreciation of
the importance of the invention, a compliment which, however gratifying
to personal pride, was fully set off by perceiving the low estimate of
the result of my labours. Other motions disparaging the invention were
made, such as proposing to appropriate part of the sum to telegraph to
the moon, but the majority of Congress did not concur in this attempt
to defeat the measure by ridicule.” In the Senate, however, it was
not honoured even by ridicule. It was allowed to lie untouched till
the last night of the session. Here also the Professor was an eager
but despairing spectator of the fate of his project. He sat listening
all day--to him a day of gloom and anxiety, unrelieved by a single
ray of hope. The session had to close at midnight, and at ten o’clock
one of the senators advised him to go home, as it was useless staying
longer--the prospect was hopeless. Morse thought so too, and with a
heavy heart left for his hotel, where after paying his bill, he found
that on his return to New York he would have thirty-seven and a half
cents in his pocket.
With this capital, he must again return to his brush and easel, and
work for fresh means to enable him to appeal to Congress at a more
convenient season. Such were the reflections that perturbed his mind,
as, overcome with fatigue, he retired to rest. Little did he dream
that night that he was to be an historic illustration of Shakespeare’s
remark that “our little life is rounded with a sleep.” Rising at a late
hour next morning, he was informed when at breakfast that a lady had
called to see him, and upon his entering the parlour, he was met by
Miss Annie Ellsworth, daughter of the Commissioner of Patents. With a
radiant smile she said, “I have come to congratulate you, Mr. Morse,”
who was advancing to shake hands with her, all unconscious that she was
a messenger of glad tidings. “To congratulate me,” said the care-worn
inventor, “for what?” “Why, upon the passage of your bill, to be sure,”
she replied. “Surely you must be mistaken,” said the Professor, who
probably thought the announcement too good to be true; “I left at a
late hour and its fate seemed inevitable.” “Indeed I’m not,” was the
reply; “father remained till the close of the session; and your bill
was the very last that was passed. I begged permission to convey the
news to you, and I am so glad I am the first to tell you. It was
passed without any discussion.” As the Commissioner of Patents was a
friend who had taken a warm interest in the fate of the telegraph, the
Professor accepted this assurance, and warmly pressing the lady’s hand,
expressed unfeigned delight at the news. In the course of some further
conversation, he said that as a reward for being the first bearer of
the glad tidings, she should be invited to send the first message over
the first line of telegraph. The promise was accepted.
He next sought permission to construct his telegraph on the railroad
from Baltimore to Washington. Even this simple matter was not settled
without some opposition. Happily Professor Morse secured the support
of Mr. Latrobe, who was then engineer to the Baltimore and Ohio
railway, and who has given an interesting account of his connection
with the project. He says that while “calling on Mr. Louis McLane, the
president, on some professional matter, I was asked in the course of
conversation whether I knew anything about an electric telegraph which
the inventor, who had obtained an appropriation from Congress, wanted
to lay down on the Washington branch of the road. He said he expected
Mr. Morse, the inventor, to call on him, when he would introduce me to
him, and would be glad if I took an opportunity to go over the subject
with him, and afterwards let him (Mr. McLane) know what I thought
about it. While we were yet speaking Mr. Morse made his appearance,
and when Mr. McLane introduced me he referred to the fact that, as I
had been educated at West Point, I might the more readily understand
the scientific bearing of Mr. Morse’s invention. The president’s
office being no place for prolonged conversation, it was agreed that
Mr. Morse should take tea at my dwelling, when we would go over the
whole subject. We met accordingly, and it was late in the night before
we parted. Mr. Morse went over the history of his invention from the
beginning with an interest and enthusiasm that had survived the
wearying toil of an application to Congress, and, with the aid of
diagrams drawn on the instant, made me master of the matter, and wrote
for me the telegraphic alphabet which is still in use all over the
world. Not a small part of what Mr. Morse said on this occasion had
reference to the future of his invention, its influence on communities
and individuals, and I remember regarding as the wild speculations
of an active imagination what he prophesied in this connection, and
which I have lived to see more than realised. Nor was his conversation
confined to his invention. A distinguished artist, an educated
gentleman, an observant traveller, it was delightful to hear him talk,
and at this day I recall few more pleasant evenings than the only one I
passed in his company.
“Of course my first visit the next morning was to Mr. McLane to make
my report. By this time I had become almost as enthusiastic as Mr.
Morse himself, and repeated what had passed between us. I soon saw that
Mr. McLane was becoming as eager for the construction of the line to
Washington as Mr. Morse could desire. He entered warmly into the spirit
of the thing, and laughed heartily, if not incredulously, when I told
him that although he had been Minister to England, Secretary of State,
and Secretary of the Treasury, his name would be forgotten, while that
of Morse would never cease to be remembered with praise and gratitude.
We then considered the question as to the right of the company to
permit the line to be laid in the bed of the road--the plan of
construction at that time being to bury in a trench some eight or ten
inches deep a half-inch leaden tube containing the wrapped wire that
was to form the electric circuit. About this there was, in my opinion,
no doubt.” The President accordingly brought the subject before the
monthly meeting of the directors held in April, 1843. Just as the
meeting was about to adjourn, he said he had almost overlooked an
application which he had received from Professor Morse for permission
to lay his telegraph line on the railroad from Baltimore to Washington,
and which their chief engineer recommended as worthy of encouragement.
A resolution was moved and seconded, giving “such facilities as may be
requisite to give the invention a proper trial,” provided it could be
done without injury to the road or embarrassment to the company. The
President pointed out that the company reserved the right of requiring
the removal of the telegraph at any time, and the resolution appeared
for a moment to command assent; but one of the older directors then
rose and stated that, notwithstanding all the precautions suggested,
he could not as a conscientious man vote for the resolution without
some further examination. He knew that this idea of Mr. Morse, though
it appeared plausible to theorists, dreamers, and men of science,
was regarded by all practical people as destined to certain failure,
and must consequently result in loss and possible ruin to Mr. Morse.
He felt conscientious scruples in giving a vote which would tempt a
visionary enthusiast to ruin himself. However, Mr. John P. Kennedy now,
as in Congress, came to the rescue of Mr. Morse, and the resolution was
adopted.
The experimental line from Baltimore to Washington was at once
commenced, and Professor Morse was appointed superintendent of the work
with a salary of 2,500 dollars. Different accounts have been given of
the progress of the work; but for authenticity and importance his own
account, given in a letter to the Secretary of the Treasury, is still
of historic interest. On August 10, 1843, he said, with reference to
his experiments with the prepared wire in one continuous line of 160
miles, that they were attended with perfect success. “I had prepared a
galvanic battery of 300 pairs in order to have ample power at command,
but, to my great gratification, I found that 100 pairs were sufficient
to produce all the effects I desired through the whole distance of
160 miles. It may be well to observe that the 160 miles of wire are
to be divided into four lengths, of forty miles each, forming a
fourfold cord from Washington to Baltimore. Two wires form a circuit;
the electricity, therefore, in producing its effect at Washington
from Baltimore, passes from Baltimore to Washington and back again to
Baltimore, of course travelling eighty miles to produce its result.
One hundred and sixty miles, therefore, give me an actual distance of
eighty miles, double the distance from Washington to Baltimore. The
result then of my experiments is, that a battery of only 100 pairs at
Washington will operate a telegraph on my plan eighty miles distant
with certainty, and without requiring any intermediate station! Some
careful experiments on the decomposing power at various distances were
made, from which the law of propulsion has been deduced, verifying
the results of Ohm and those which I made in the summer of 1842. THE
PRACTICAL INFERENCE FROM THIS LAW IS THAT A TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
ON THE ELECTRO-MAGNETIC PLAN MAY, WITH CERTAINTY, BE ESTABLISHED ACROSS
THE ATLANTIC OCEAN! STARTLING AS THIS MAY NOW SEEM, I AM CONFIDENT THE
TIME WILL COME WHEN THIS PROJECT WILL BE REALISED. The wire is now in
its last process of preparation for enclosing in the lead tube, which
will be commenced on Tuesday the 15th of August.” It thus appears that
he had no sooner begun the construction of the first land line in
America than he had conceived the greatest submarine achievement in
telegraphy. This was the first authoritative proposal of an Atlantic
telegraph.
The idea of enclosing insulated wires in pipes was taken from the
accounts published in America of Wheatstone’s first telegraph in
England; but this method when tried proved unsuccessful, and was at
once abandoned, the wires being henceforth placed on poles. About a
year was occupied in completing the first practical line; and then
Professor Morse sent for Miss Ellsworth, and asked her to supply the
first message. This she did, giving the memorable words: “What hath God
wrought!” The Professor himself worked the transmitter, which was in
the chamber of the United States Supreme Court at Washington; the date
was the 24th of May, 1844; and the message was received at Baltimore in
the signs which were henceforth to be known as the Morse Alphabet, as
follows:
.-- .... .- - .... .- - ....
W H A T H A T H
--. . . -.. .-- . .. . .
G O D W R O
..- --. .... -
U G H T
An incident soon occurred which brought the telegraph into notoriety.
Three days after the transmission of the first message the National
Democratic Convention, then sitting in Baltimore, nominated James K.
Polk as president; and as vice-president Silas Wright, who was at
that time in the Senate at Washington. Mr. Vail sent the news of the
nomination by telegraph from Baltimore to Professor Morse, and he
communicated it to Mr. Wright, who immediately declined the nomination.
The rapidity with which the messages had passed between Baltimore and
Washington surprised the Convention, who are said to have been so
incredulous on the subject that they sent a Committee to Washington to
confer with Mr. Wright, and adjourned till the desired confirmation
was received. The incident caused a sensation. The telegraph became
the latest “wonder.” Professor Morse’s long winter of despondency and
anxious struggle seemed now to be made glorious summer. The hill of
difficulty appeared to have been surmounted. His invention answered
expectations, and the experimental line worked well. Now his buoyancy
seemed to rise to poetic flights; for in March, 1845, he wrote that
while travelling on the Rhine some years previously he saw on a sundial
at Worms the motto _Horas non numero nisi serenas_; the beauty of its
sentiment appeared to him to be so well sustained in the euphony of its
syllables that he placed it in his note-book, and he now ventured to
expand it into the following stanzas which he dedicated “To my young
friend A----, sincerely praying that the dial of her life may ever show
unclouded hours.”
TO MISS A. G. E.
THE SUNDIAL.
_Horas non numero nisi serenas._
I note not the hours except they be bright.
The sun when it shines in a clear, cloudless sky
Marks the time of my disc in figures of light.
If clouds gather o’er me, unheeded they fly,
I note not the hours except they be bright.
So when I review all the scenes that have passed
Between me and thee, be they dark, be they light,
I forget what was dark, the light I hold fast,
I note not the hours except they be bright.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] In 1834 Professor Morse wrote a series of papers which
were afterwards published as a volume with the title
_Foreign Conspiracy against the Liberties of the
United States_.
CHAPTER III.
“For a man to do benefit from such means as he may have and
may cause, is the most glorious of labours.”--SOPHOCLES.
The practical working of the telegraph being now demonstrated,
Professor Morse may be said to have forsaken his first vocation. He
afterwards assured his artist friends that his leaving their ranks
cost him many a pang, and that he did not leave them till he saw them
well established and entering upon a career of prosperity. He also
pointed out that in the records of art there were conspicuous examples
of men forsaking art to enter upon a career of invention. The American
Fulton, whose scientific studies led to the introduction of steam
navigation was a painter, and “it may not be generally known that the
important invention of the percussion cap was due to the scientific
recreations of the English painter Shaw.” In like manner Daguerre,
who in France discovered the art of photography, was an artist; and
just when Professor Morse was prosecuting his art studies with the
greatest zeal and hope, it was stated that in early life painting was
the favourite amusement of Sir Humphry Davy, who was diverted from art
to chemistry by the results of some experiments instituted for the
purpose of preparing colours. To such examples has now to be added the
inventor of the recording telegraph. Professor Morse always claimed for
himself the credit of being the inventor of the first telegraph, by
which, however, he meant a telegraph in the strict definition of the
word--a means of recording intelligence at a distance. From that point
of view he contended that the invention of Wheatstone and Cooke was a
semaphore, which merely indicated letters on a dial by the movement of
needles; and that while the invention of a telegraph was one thing,
its practical introduction was quite another thing--the time of the
invention was one thing and the time of its practical introduction
another. “In 1832,” he said, in reply to a challenge from W. F. Cooke,
“I had the idea of producing an automatic record at a distance by means
of electricity, the idea of a true telegraph; and this original idea
was immediately followed by the invention of the means for carrying
it into effect. This was the new idea of 1832 now realised in the
Morse telegraph system, and the Chief Justice of the United States, in
delivering the judgment of the supreme court, said there was full and
clear evidence that when Morse was returning from Europe in 1832 he
was deeply engaged upon this subject during the voyage, and that the
process and means were so far developed and arranged in his own mind
that he was confident of its ultimate success.” The inventor admitted
that 1844 was the date of the practical introduction of the invention
of 1832; and he did not claim exclusive credit for the invention. He
himself stated that it rarely, if ever, happened that any invention
was so independent of all others that a single individual could justly
appropriate to himself the entire credit of all its parts. “It is
only,” he said, “when the nature of an invention is properly understood
that the justice of the ascription of honour to the individual
inventor is perceived. Invention is emphatically combination, an
assembling or putting together of things known, whether discoveries
or other inventions, to produce a new effect, to create a new art.”
If that definition appears to be especially adapted to suit his own
circumstances, it is worthy of remark that similar definitions were
given by Aristotle and Bacon.
Professor Morse always felt sure that if he had only an opportunity
of demonstrating the operation of his telegraph, its utility would be
self-evident. Sad experience had taught him that it was not an easy
task to convince a money-making people of the value of a mere work of
art,--“a thing of beauty;” but how different, he thought, would be
the case with the electric telegraph, which he believed capable of
uniting, by “the pulse of speech,” the New World with the Old, which
seemed destined to annihilate space, and to extend to peoples far
apart one of the greatest gifts bestowed by the Creator upon persons
near each other--an instantaneous intercharge of thought. Had he not
solved the problem which the ancient Hebrew propounded as a sublime
impossibility: “Canst thou send lightnings that they may go, and say
unto thee, Here we are?” Yea, more,--he had made the element which
Franklin had proved to be akin to lightning not only the messenger but
the recorder of human speech. But even this was not enough to command
success. Difficulty and disappointment were still before him. In the
great tragedy of Æschylus illustrating the struggle of mind against
circumstances and the ingratitude of mankind to inventors, Prometheus
is represented as conferring a great blessing upon mortals by causing
blind hopes to dwell among them, and thus stopping them from ever
looking forward to their fate. But higher aspirations impelled Morse
onward in his beneficent career. Have ye never observed, said Saurin,
that people of the finest and most enlarged geniuses have often the
least success of any people in the world? “This may appear at first
sight very unaccountable, but a little attention will explain the
mystery. A narrow, contracted mind usually concentrates itself in
one single object: it wholly employs itself in forming projects of
happiness proportioned to its own capacity, and as its capacity is
extremely shallow, it easily meets with the means of executing them.
But this is not the case with a man of superior genius, whose fruitful
fancy forms notions of happiness grand and sublime. He invents noble
plans, involuntarily gives himself up to his own chimeras, and derives
a pleasure from these ingenious shadows, which for a few moments
compensate for the want of substance; but when his reverie is over, he
finds real beings inferior to ideal ones, and thus his genius serves
to make him miserable. A man is much to be pitied when the penetration
of his mind and the fruitfulness of his invention furnish him with
ideas of a delighted community attached by a faithful and delicate
appreciation. Recall to him this world, above which his imagination
had just now raised him; consider him among men whose knowledge and
friendship are merely superficial, and you will be convinced that
the art of inventing is often the art of self-tormenting.” Need we
wonder, then, that after the utility of Morse’s telegraph was fully
demonstrated, he experienced unexpected difficulty as to its adoption.
His first idea was to attach it to the Post Office Department. “My
earliest desires,” he said, “were that the Government should possess
the control of such a power as I could not but foresee was inherent in
the telegraph. Vast as its pecuniary value loomed up in the minds of
some, in the contemplation of its future I was neither dazzled with its
visions of untold wealth, nor tempted to make an extortionate demand
upon the Government for its possession. Not merely all my own property
had been expended on the invention, but large sums had been advanced by
my associates, and these were items that entered into the calculations
of any offer of sale.” In September, 1837, he suggested in a letter to
the Secretary that it would be a useful auxiliary to the Post Office,
and the Secretary supported the suggestion in a letter to the Speaker
of the House on December 6, 1837. Two months later the importunate
inventor repeated his proposal to the Chairman of the House Committee
of Commerce. Again, in 1842, the Hon. C. G. Ferris, writing from
the Committee of Commerce, remarked that the prospects of profit to
individual enterprise were so inviting that “it is a matter of serious
consideration whether the Government should not on this account alone
seize the present opportunity of securing to itself the regulation of a
system which, if monopolised by a private company, might be used to the
serious injury of the Post Office Department.”
When negotiating with the Government in reference to the grant for the
experimental line, Professor Morse undertook that, before entering into
any arrangement for disposing of his patent rights to any individual
or company, he would offer it to the Government for such a just and
reasonable compensation as might be mutually agreed upon. Accordingly,
after the construction of the experimental line and the successful
demonstration of its working, he offered the whole of his rights to
the Government for 100,000 dollars. The only notice the Government
took of this offer was to request from the Postmaster-General a report
on the subject. The Postmaster-General in 1845 happened to be Mr.
Cave Johnson, who in Congress ridiculed and opposed the telegraph
bill, and who now had under his control the experimental line from
Washington to Baltimore. The reply he gave to Professor Morse’s offer
was that he was not yet satisfied that under any rate of postage the
revenue of the telegraph could be made equal to the expenditure. One
half of the time for which his patent granted protection had now
expired, and it was therefore necessary to use every means to make it
a commercial success. This Professor Morse did, but being unwilling
to “shut the door” against the Government, he inserted a proviso in
every contract he made for the use of the telegraph, that if the
Government concluded arrangements for the purchase of it by the 4th of
March, 1847, the contract should cease. Nevertheless the Government
allowed the opportunity to go unheeded, and the Professor complained
not only of the disappointment thus occasioned, but of the prejudice
it created against him. Companies had been formed for constructing
lines from Baltimore to New York and from New York to Buffalo, and the
promoters at the outset were hopeful that the revenue would at least
equal the expenditure; but the conduct of the Government for a time
seemed to cast a blight upon their prospects. In after years Professor
Morse declared that but for the indomitable energy and faith of the
friends who then supported him by their influence and money, his
telegraph might have been abandoned as too expensive to be practicable.
Conspicuous among his supporters was Mr. Amos Kendall, who had formerly
been Postmaster-General, and who was the prime mover in forming
joint-stock companies to construct and work the telegraph. On April
1st, 1845, the line from Washington to Baltimore was opened for public
business, the charge being a cent (or a halfpenny) for every four
characters. The first line constructed after the experimental one was
that of the Magnetic Telegraph Company from Philadelphia to Norristown,
Pa., a length of 14 miles, which was opened in November, 1845; it was
continued to Fort Lee in the January following, and completed from
Philadelphia to Baltimore on June 5, 1846.
Once fairly started, the telegraph in America made such rapid strides
as soon eclipsed its progress in those countries in which it had an
earlier start. Within half a dozen years about thirty Companies were
formed to carry on the work of telegraphic extension, and to reap the
profits of an invention which the Government could not be induced to
accept. Sir Robert Inglis, in his address as President of the British
Association meeting at Oxford in June, 1847, stated that he had just
received a report presented to the Legislative Council and Assembly
of New Brunswick relating to a project for constructing a railway and
a line of telegraph from Halifax to Quebec, with reference to which
he said: “Distance is time, and when by steam, whether on water or
on land, personal communication is facilitated, and when orders are
conveyed from one extremity of the Empire to another almost like a
flash of lightning, the facility of governing a large State becomes
almost equal to the facility of governing the smallest. I remember
reading many years ago in the _Scotsman_ an ingenious and able article
showing how England could be governed as easily as Attica under
Pericles; and I believe the same conclusion was deduced by William
Cobbett from the same illustration. The system is daily extending. It
was, however, in the United States of America that it was first adopted
on a great scale, by Professor Morse in 1844; and it is there that it
is now already developed most extensively. Lines for above 1,300 miles
are in action, and connect those States with Her Majesty’s Canadian
provinces; and it is in a course of development so rapid that, in the
words of the Report of Mr. Wilkinson to Sir W. E. Colebrooke, the
Governor of New Brunswick, no schedule of telegraphic lines can now
be relied upon for a month in succession, as hundreds of miles may be
added in that space of time. So easy of attainment does such a result
appear to be, and so lively is the interest felt in its accomplishment,
that it is scarcely doubtful that the whole of the populous parts of
the United States will, within two or three years, be covered with a
network like a spider’s web, suspending its principal threads upon
important points, along the sea board of the Atlantic on one side,
and upon similar points along the Lake Frontier on the other. I am
indebted to the same Report for another fact, which I think of equal
interest: The confidence in the efficiency of telegraphic communication
has now become so established, that the most important commercial
transactions daily transpire, by its means, between correspondents
several hundred miles apart. Ocular evidence of this was afforded
by a communication a few minutes old between a merchant in Toronto
and his correspondent in New York, distant about 632 miles. When the
_Hibernia_ steamer arrived in Boston in January, 1847, with the news
of the scarcity in Great Britain, Ireland, and other parts of Europe,
and with heavy orders for agricultural produce, the farmers in the
interior of the State of New York--informed of the state of things
by the Magnetic Telegraph--were thronging the streets of Albany with
innumerable team-loads of grain almost as quickly after the arrival of
the steamer at Boston as the news of that arrival could ordinarily have
reached them. I may add that, irrespectively of all its advantages to
the general community, the system appears to give already a fair return
of interest to the individuals or companies who have invested their
capital in its application. I cannot refer to the extent of the lines
of the electric telegraph in America without an increased feeling of
regret that in England this great discovery has been so inadequately
adopted. So far at least as the capital is concerned, the two greatest
of our railway companies have not, I believe, yet carried the electric
telegraph further from London than to Watford and Slough.”
About the same time Professor Morse stated that, as the result of
improvements in his telegraph, the President’s entire message on the
subject of the war with Mexico was transmitted with perfect accuracy
at the rate of ninety-nine letters per minute. His skilful operators
in Washington and Baltimore printed these characters at the rate of
98, 101, 111, and one of them actually printed 117 letters per minute.
It was pointed out that as an expert penman seldom writes legibly more
than 100 letters per minute, the Morse telegraph then about equalled
the most expeditious mode of recording thought.
Between 1844 and 1855 the telegraph was used for another purpose
which was regarded in the world of science as of great importance.
In 1839 Professor Morse, while in Paris, suggested to Arago that the
telegraph might be used for determining the difference of longitude
between places with an accuracy previously unattainable. The first
experiment for the determination of longitude was made in 1844 at
Baltimore, and fully realised the expectation of Professor Morse. The
Battle Monument Square, Baltimore, was found to be 1 m. 34 sec. ·868
east of the capital at Washington, a difference of three quarters of
a second from the former results recorded in the American Almanac.
This may appear a trifling matter to unscientific readers, but a short
explanation will show its importance. The latitude of any place--its
distance from the equator north or south--can be accurately determined
by astronomical observation; but its longitude, or distance east or
west of any particular place agreed upon as a meridional standard, such
as Greenwich, was often determined with difficulty. It is well known
that in the diurnal rotation of the earth every portion of its surface
is turned towards the sun once in twenty-four hours, and that noon
occurs at places east of Greenwich earlier than at Greenwich, and later
at places west of Greenwich. The difference between the local time
at any particular place and Greenwich time is the longitude of that
place from Greenwich; but much difficulty was formerly experienced in
ascertaining the exact time at both places at the instant adopted for
comparison. At sea it was formerly determined by elaborate observations
of the position of the moon among the stars; and latterly both on
land and sea it was generally done by carrying a good chronometer
from the one place to the other, the difference between the local
time and the Greenwich time recorded by the chronometer giving the
longitude. But the exactness of this method depended upon the accuracy
of the chronometer, and the rapidity with which it could be carried
from one place to the other. But now by means of the telegraph, when
the wire is kept clear for the purpose, the time at one place can be
instantaneously transmitted to another place; and if the local time at
each place is correct, the difference gives the longitude.