It is worthy of remark that just about a_Lives of the electricians

of the Morse telegraph the marine chronometer was invented by John

Harrison, an ingenious cabinet maker, expressly for the purpose of

determining longitude at sea; and he was induced to do so by the

British Government offering a reward of 20,000_l._ 15,000_l._ or

10,000_l._ for a discovery which might prove successful in determining

longitude at sea. Now Morse, without any offer of reward, invented his

telegraph, and not only suggested its use for determining longitude

on land, but himself directed the first experiment between Washington

and Baltimore to prove its practicability for that purpose. In 1847 it

was announced that the relative longitudes of New York, Philadelphia,

and Washington had been determined by means of the telegraph, and

it was added that two important facts, before known theoretically,

were then practically demonstrated, that a clock in New York could be

compared with another at a distance of 200 miles quite as accurately

as two clocks in adjoining rooms, and that “the time required for the

electric fluid to travel from New York to Washington and back again, a

distance of 450 miles, is so small a fraction of a second that it is

inappreciable to the most practised observer.” So well was this method

appreciated that Lieutenant Maury, of the United States Navy, stated

in 1849, that as the electric telegraph then extended through all the

States of the Union, except perhaps Arkansas, Texas, and one other

frontier, “a splendid field is presented for doing the world a service

by connecting, for difference of longitude through means of magnetic

telegraph and clock, all the principal points of this country with the

Observatory at Washington. In anticipation of such extension of the

wires, I ordered an instrument for the purpose, and it has recently

arrived. It is intended to determine _latitude_ also--so that by its

means and this clock I hope, during the year, to know pretty accurately

the geographical position of Montreal, Boston, Chicago, St. Louis, New

Orleans, &c., and their difference of longitude from Washington, quite

as correctly as the difference between Greenwich and Paris has been

established by the usual method and after many years of observation.”

The telegraphic method was first tried in England in May, 1853, when

the Astronomer Royal ascertained the difference of longitude between

the observatories of Greenwich and Cambridge. On the Continent

Professor Encke in the same year determined the difference of longitude

between Berlin and Frankfort-on-the-Main; and the difference between

Greenwich and Paris was determined in 1854.

In 1853, eight years after the opening of the first line of telegraph

in America, there were 25,000 miles of wire erected at a cost of

1,000,000_l._, and it was reported that in working these lines there

were consumed 720 tons of zinc, worth 12,000_l._, over 1,000,000 lbs.

of nitric acid, worth 24,000_l._, and 6,000_l._ worth of mercury in

a year. The most distant points then connected by telegraph were the

cities of Halifax (Nova Scotia) and Quebec with New Orleans, a length

of 2,000 miles. The distance by telegraph between New York and New

Orleans was 3,000 miles, and messages from the one town to the other

were delivered in an hour. A report published in 1853, stated that

by the aid of the telegraph the vast republic of America, 3,000 miles

long by 3,000 broad, could be as easily managed and governed as a

single city, and that “a long experience in America,” with some dozen

different lines of telegraph, established the fact that the velocity

of the electric current was about 15,400 miles per second. The time

occupied in transmission between Boston and Bangor having been exactly

measured, it was found to be the sixteen-thousandth part of a second,

the velocity of the current being at the rate of 16,000 miles per

second, or about 600 miles per second more than the average of other

experiments in that country.

In 1886 it was computed that on the telegraph lines of the United

States 30,000 Morse sounders were in daily use, and that the total

consumption of copper in the local batteries amounted to about 750,000

lbs. per annum, which cost 6,300_l._, together with 100,000 lbs. of

zinc which cost 1,200_l._

[Illustration: FIG. 1]

[Illustration: FIG. 2]

A short description of the Morse apparatus in its improved form may

be conveniently given here. The illustration shows the transmitting

key in its simplest shape. It is evident that by merely depressing the

handle till the upper lever comes in contact with the lower bar of

metal at the point A, a current of electricity will flow through the

point of contact from the battery wire to the telegraph wire. In order

to break the contact or circuit, the operator has simply to desist from

depressing the handle of the upper lever, which is instantly raised

from contact by the action of the spring at the other end. The operator

can thus make and break the circuit at pleasure, and according to

the frequency and duration of the act of depressing the handle will

be the number and length of the signs produced at the far end of the

telegraph wire. A long and strong depression of the handle would allow

the passage of sufficient electricity to make a long sign; and if the

operator next made two short depressions, giving two short signs, the

three together, thus -- - -, would mean D. If the receiving instrument

called the Sounder were in use, instead of the Recorder, long and short

sounds would be produced in proportion to the quantity of electricity

transmitted, instead of long and short ink marks. The Sounder is a

simpler instrument than the Recorder, and is in more general use.

The chief part of its operation is effected by means of the relay or

local battery. A simple illustration shows its essential parts. When a

current of electricity from the transmitter comes along the telegraph

wire, it enters the electro-magnet E M, which forms the central part

of the apparatus, and which, being thus electrified, attracts to

itself the armature C, just above it. In this way the moveable lever,

B C D, is drawn down till its point, D, touches the point of the

lower screw, L, which is saturated with electricity from the local

battery. Immediately the end of the lever, D, touches the point of the

lower screw, L, electricity flows from the latter into the former,

the quantity of electricity being proportionate to the length of the

contact, or, to use a more technical term, to the time that the local

circuit is thus complete; but the instant the current sent along the

telegraph wire ceases, the electro-magnet, E M, becomes powerless, the

end of the moveable lever, D, is drawn, by the spring S, away from the

lower screw, L, and strikes against the higher screw, H, thus making a

clicking sound, the loudness and duration of which are proportionate to

the current of electricity originally sent; but at the same time the

original current, especially on long lines, would be quite inadequate

to affect the lever with the strength that it acquires from the local

battery during its momentary contact with the lower screw, L. The loud

and feeble sounds combined with long and short intervals between them

represent letters of the alphabet, but it requires a practised ear

to interpret them. In the Recorder, the arrival of a current in the

electro-magnet and the consequent lowering of the lever brings an ink

siphon in contact with a moving strip of paper and thus produces a

dash; and when the current ceases the lever is raised, thus withdrawing

the ink siphon from the paper; so that the dash produced is long or

short in proportion to the current sent along the telegraph wire.

Such is the simple but ingenious apparatus which, by its universal use,

has made the name of Morse known throughout the civilised world. Its

invention, however, was not the only telegraphic achievement with which

he was connected. Mention has already been made of his first attempt

at submarine telegraphy; and in later years he actively promoted the

carrying out of the greatest enterprise of that description.

In 1853 it was stated, in certain American and English newspapers, that

a recent discovery had been made in telegraphing which might work as

great a revolution in the world of letters and commerce as had already

been effected by the original application of electricity or magnetism

to the purposes of telegraphic communication. It was generally assumed

till then that there was a limit to the force of electric currents,

and that they could not be made strong enough to be sent across the

Atlantic. Under that impression it had been proposed to construct a

submarine telegraph between Great Britain and the United States by a

circuitous route across the various straits and channels lying between

the intermediate islands of the North Atlantic Ocean, commencing at

the north of Scotland, proceeding by the Shetland and Faroe Islands

to Iceland, a distance of 300 miles, next landing on the shores of

Greenland and going across land to Davis Strait, after crossing which

it would reach the mainland of Labrador. In 1852 it was announced that

“the vast enterprise” of connecting the Old and New Worlds by this

route had been commenced by sinking the first line in Transatlantic

waters between Cape Lormentine, New Brunswick, and Carlton Head on

Prince Edward Island; and next year it was pompously announced as a new

discovery that the electric current might be sent to “any conceivable

distance,” and the newspapers, in publishing the announcement, said

it could not any longer be doubted that the ocean telegraph would be

realised, and that “a line of wires will encircle the whole earth,

bringing all parts of it into instantaneous communication with each

other. It is impossible for any human foresight to estimate or predict

even the results of such a communication, and we trust that the

Governments of the United States and Great Britain will take up the

matter of an oceanic line on a scale commensurate with its importance,

providing such a number of distinct wires enclosed in one cable as will

supply the necessities of commerce and intercourse between Europe and

America.”

Early in 1854 Mr. Cyrus Field took an active interest in the project

for laying a cable in mid ocean between America and Europe; and one of

the first things he did was to send for Professor Morse and to consult

him as to the practicability of telegraphing such a long distance.

The Professor called on Mr. Field and entered into a full exposition

of the subject, assuring him that the project was practicable. Next

year the New York, Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company was

formed, and they obtained from the Government of Newfoundland an act of

incorporation, a guarantee of interest on 50,000_l._ of the company’s

bonds, and a grant of fifty square miles of land on the island of

Newfoundland. The Governments of Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia,

Canada, and the State of Maine, as well as those of Great Britain and

the United States, also made substantial grants. In 1855 an attempt

was made to connect St. John’s with the mainland, but this was not

successfully accomplished till 1856, and the line was then continued

across the island to Trinity Bay, the American terminus of the Atlantic

telegraph. In 1856 Mr. Field visited England for the purpose of

enlisting English capitalists in the enterprise, and his mission was so

successful that in 1857 the Atlantic Telegraph Company was formed. It

acquired all the rights and privileges of the New York, Newfoundland,

and London Company; and within a month raised a capital of 350,000_l._

The British Government offered to the company the use of the war vessel

_Agamemnon_ for the purpose of laying a cable, while the United States

Government in like manner offered their newest and finest vessel--the

_Niagara_--which was 715 feet long and 56 feet wide. The main question

at issue was whether electric signals could be transmitted through a

cable 2,300 miles in length. At the close of 1856 Professor Morse, who

was then regarded as the greatest authority on the subject, calculated

that ten words could be transmitted in a minute. In a report which

he furnished to the company he explained that gutta-percha covered

submarine wires did not transmit in the same way as simple insulated

conductors, that they had to be charged like a Leyden jar before they

could transmit at all, and that the velocity of transmission was

consequently much slower than in ordinary conductors. In the Leyden

jar--a glass vessel covered with tinfoil both inside and outside--the

electricity, entering at the neck, charges the interior metallic

coating, and at the same time induces or generates electricity in the

outside coating, the electricity on the one side being positive, and on

the other side negative. In a submarine cable the electricity charged

into the wire behaves in a manner similar to that in a Leyden jar; in

the one case the gutta-percha is the insulator; in the other case it

is the glass jar. Professor Morse pointed out that as the opposite

electricities attracted each other in the wire of a cable, the current

was thus retarded in its rate of motion. This inductive retardation

was dreaded in a long cable; but Professor Morse suggested that the

velocity of the transmission of signals along insulated submerged wires

could be enormously increased, from the rate of one signal in two

seconds to eight in one second, by making each alternate signal with a

current of different quality, positive following negative, and negative

following positive.

In April, 1857, the _Niagara_ came to England, where the first

Atlantic cable was being manufactured. Professor Morse came too; and

the day after he disembarked at Gravesend he entered fully into the

prospects and capabilities of the cable. He was fond of assuring

English inquirers as to the desire in America for a cable, that it was

the ambition of the people of the United States to know what was done

in England before it took place; as an event happening in London at

noon would, if the cable were laid, be published in New York on the

morning of the same day. But he had more solid reasons than that to

give in support of the undertaking. He stated that he was anxious to

see the cable in active operation under the ocean because he had a firm

conviction that then the chances of conflict and of misunderstanding

between Englishmen and Americans must be diminished in an incalculable

degree. He felt sure that it would be used for no hostile purpose, and

that when New York would become a suburb of London, and Washington the

western half of Westminster, an American war would be about as likely a

thing as Camberwell organising an attack upon Camden Town, or Peckham

making a raid upon Pimlico. All wars, he said, arise in ignorance and

misunderstanding of the real objects and interests of the race by

which they are waged: to increase the facilities for an interchange

of ideas, for the opening out of commercial relations, and for the

development of intelligence, must be to diminish the need of appeals

from reason to force; and a small cable laid quietly at the bottom of

the Atlantic at a cost of 350,000_l._ would do more for the maintenance

of international peace and for the furtherance of national prosperity

than an expenditure of 10,000,000_l._ a year on each side of the

Atlantic in the construction and commissioning of such armed Leviathans

as would carry and pioneer the electrical rope to its resting-place.

In reporting these words of Professor Morse the directors of the

Atlantic Telegraph Company said the shareholders would not be

unwilling to receive his “opinion and assurance upon that point as the

first instalment of their interest.” Equally complimentary was the

appreciation they expressed of his opinion as to the feasibility of the

undertaking. In 1856 when it was determined to make experiments on long

lengths of telegraph wires for the purpose of proving that intelligence

could be transmitted for long distances, it was proposed to provide

the requisite length of cable by joining together the underground

lines of the English and Irish Magnetic Telegraph Company, extending

from London to Dublin _viâ_ Dumfries. These lines were 600 miles long,

and were capable of forming a continuous length of 5,000 miles. The

directors stated that every possible precaution was taken in this trial

to guard against accidental causes of error by the introduction of

test instruments at each available point of junction, and “to crown

the whole, the veteran electrician, Professor Morse, of the United

States, was present at the operations and witnessed the result.” On

the night of October 2nd, “the conclave of experimenters” met at the

office of the Magnetic Telegraph Company in Old Broad Street, London,

and made their experiments on a circuit of subterranean or submarine

wires which was considered to present the nearest approach to the

working of a real and continuous submarine cable. The arrangements were

considered perfectly satisfactory, and the result was described as an

unquestionable triumph. By means of one of Morse’s ordinary receiving

instruments signals were distinctly telegraphed through 2,000 miles

of wire at the rate of 210, 241, and on one occasion 270 per minute.

Elated at the realisation of his anticipations, Professor Morse wrote

to Mr. Cyrus Field, stating that “there could be no question that, with

a cable containing a single conducting wire, of a size not exceeding

that through which we worked, and with equal insulation, it would be

easy to telegraph from Ireland to Newfoundland at a speed of at least

from eight to ten words per minute. Take it at ten words in a minute,

and allowing ten words for name and address, we can safely calculate

upon the transmission of a twenty-word message in three minutes--twenty

such messages in an hour, 480 in the twenty-four hours, or 14,400 words

per day. Such are the capabilities of a single wire cable fairly and

moderately computed. It is, however, evident to me that by improvements

in the arrangement of the signals themselves, aided by the adoption of

a code or system constructed upon the principles of the best nautical

code, we may at least double the speed in the transmission of our

messages. In one word, the doubts are solved; the difficulties are

overcome; success is within our reach; and the great feat of the

century must shortly be accomplished.” The rate of transmission through

the Atlantic cable was eventually from ten to twenty words a minute,

but great improvements had to be made before the higher speed was

attained.

In July, 1857, the _Niagara_ went to Birkenhead to take on board one

half of the cable which had been manufactured there, and having shipped

her peculiar freight she proceeded to Queenstown, where she was joined

by the _Agamemnon_, which had shipped the other half of the cable in

the Thames. Off Queenstown the two halves of the cable in the ships

were united so as to form a circuit of 2,500 miles. When charged with

electricity it was found that a current flowed through the cable.

Indeed, a distinct message was telegraphed through it, but the rate

of transmitting signals was slow. One current occupied a second and

three-quarters in passing through; but when it was found that three

successive signals could be transmitted in two seconds, the prospect

was considered satisfactory. The tests being so far successful, it was

at first intended that the two vessels should proceed to mid ocean,

whence, having joined together the two halves of the cable, each vessel

could proceed towards the opposite shores. At the last hour, however,

it was deemed more prudent to start paying out from the Irish coast.

Accordingly, on August 4th, 1857, the two cable ships, each attended

by three smaller vessels, left Queenstown, and arrived in Valencia Bay

on the following day. After some inaugural ceremonies, the telegraph

squadron started to pay out the cable on August 7th. Professor Morse

was on board the _Niagara_, which began the work of paying out. On

the morning of the fourth day (August 11th) the cable parted, and the

335 miles paid out appeared to be lost at the bottom of the ocean. In

a letter describing the accident, Professor Morse said that at the

time it occurred “there was a moderately heavy sea, which caused the

ship’s stern to rise several feet and to fall to the same degree;

when the stern fell, the cable under its immense strain went down into

the water easily and quickly, but when the stern was lifted by the

irresistible power of the succeeding wave the force exerted upon the

cable under such circumstances would have parted a cable of four times

the strength. Hence it is no wonder that our cable, subjected to such

a tremendous and unnatural strain, should snap like a pack-thread. It

did snap, and in an instant the whole course and plan of our future

proceedings were necessarily changed. How many visions of wealth, of

fame, and of pleasure were dependent for their realisation on the

integrity of that little nerve thread, spinning out like a spider’s web

from the stern of our noble ship and (in view of the mighty force of

steam and waves and winds and mechanism brought to bear upon it) quite

as frail. Yet with all its frailties, nothing could exceed the beauty

of its quiet passage to its ocean bed from the moment we had joined it

to the shore end till the fatal mistake of not easing the breaks which

caused the breaking of it asunder. The effect on shipboard was very

striking. It parted just before daylight. All hands rushed to the deck,

but there was no confusion; the telegraph machinery had stopped; the

men gathered in mournful groups, and their tones were sad and voices

as low as if a death had occurred on board. I believe there was not a

man in the ship who did not feel really as melancholy as if a comrade

had been lost overboard.” On the vessels returning to Plymouth the

chief electricians connected with the enterprise, Mr. W. Whitehouse,

Professor Morse, and Professor William Thomson, issued a report

certifying that “every experiment which we have made upon the cable,

every test to which we have subjected it, both for its insulating

and conducting power, has uniformly resulted in demonstrating the

perfect fitness of the cable for its office. The treble covering

of gutta-percha so entirely provides for the remote possibility of

an accidental flaw occurring in the first or second coat, that all

risk of defective insulation is avoided.” The directors determined to

renew the attempt during a more favourable period of 1858 with certain

improvements in the paying out machinery and with a greater length of

cable. During the winter the whole of the cable was stored at Keyham

Docks (Plymouth); and the British and American Governments having again

granted the use of the same vessels, it was reshipped in the spring.

The vessels first proceeded, in the last days of May, to the Bay of

Biscay, where experiments were made for three days in splicing and

paying out the cable, and both the mechanical and electrical tests were

reported as very promising. The squadron returned to Plymouth, whence

they sailed again on June 10th, 1858. While proceeding to mid ocean,

where they were to join the two halves and then commence paying out,

they encountered a fearful gale, and when they reached the trysting

place three attempts to lay the cable proved unsuccessful. In the first

attempt the cable parted after two miles and forty fathoms were paid

out, in the second attempt forty-two miles and 300 fathoms, and in the

third attempt 145 miles and 930 fathoms were paid out. The vessels then

returned to Queenstown to replenish their coal supplies. They started

again on July 12th, and having joined the cable ends together on the

29th, in mid ocean, the _Niagara_ landed at Trinity Bay, Newfoundland,

on August 5th. The _Agamemnon_ had likewise reached Valencia, all

well. It was found that through the cable thus laid from shore to

shore electric signals passed at the same rate as in the tests made

in England; messages were transmitted for nearly a month, after which

defects in insulation gradually increased. After transmitting 366

messages it ceased “to speak” on October 20th, 1858. In the latter and

successful expedition Professor Morse took no active part. By that

time the work which he had taken a foremost part in initiating had

fallen into younger and more energetic hands, while his attention was

diverted to the honours and rewards which ought to crown a well-spent

life, and which are more congenial to a man in his sixty-seventh year

than the carrying out of an enterprise that he had pronounced feasible

sixteen years previously. He lived to see it made a permanent success a

quarter of a century after he had first suggested it.

CHAPTER IV.

“He that has improved the virtue or advanced the happiness

of one fellow-creature, he that has ascertained a single

moral proposition, or added one useful experiment

to natural knowledge, may be contented with his own

performance, and, with respect to mortals like himself,

may demand, like Augustus, to be dismissed at his

departure with applause.”--DR. JOHNSON.

The fate of inventors has been one of the enigmas of history. Lord

Bacon has praised the justness of antiquity in awarding divine honours

to inventors whose benefits might extend to the whole human race,

while only heroic honours were awarded to statesmen who benefited only

particular places. But even in antiquity the honours paid to inventors

were generally posthumous. Horace wrote that

“Though living virtue we despise;

When dead, we praise it to the skies.”

And a later Roman writer endeavoured to explain this anomalous

treatment by stating that “we envy the living by whose merit we think

ourselves overwhelmed, but we venerate departed merit because we are

edified by it.” Human nature has not changed much since the Augustan

age; but in nothing perhaps has public feeling in our own time

undergone such a revolution as in respect to inventors. Some may think

that this change can be accounted for by the greatness of the benefits

which inventors have wrought in our day. But there have been great

inventors before now. “If one looks back,” says Mr. J. L. Ricardo, “to

the times when the most important inventions were produced, it appears

they were all made without even a patent, so far as we can discover.

For instance, arithmetic, writing, and all the first great inventions,

to which we are so habituated that we scarce think they have been

invented any more than the flowers or trees, yet were mighty inventions

in their time. Paper was invented in the year 1200, oil painting in

the year 1297, glass in 1310, printing in 1430, and gunpowder in 1450.

All these inventions, or very many of them, were made by men without

artificial stimulus, often at the peril of their lives, when their

reward was not a monopoly, but perhaps the stake or the gibbet.” It may

be observed, however, that most of these “great inventions” might more

accurately be described as the result of the discovery of natural laws,

and hence they were generally ascribed to alchemy or sorcery; whereas

in our day the inventions that have been most beneficial have been of

a mechanical description. There is scarcely a machine now in use that

is not an invention of modern times; and while many of the discoveries,

called inventions, of former ages were made accidentally, who would

ever think of saying that the complicated machinery in use nowadays

was invented by accident? Obviously it has been the result of labour,

skill, and knowledge; and its effect is to save labour and supersede

skill. It is probably the greater effort required in the production of

modern machinery, and its obvious utility when in operation, that have

secured for inventors an honourable place in public estimation, as well

as more adequate remuneration for their services. At all events such

was the case with the Morse telegraph.

Not that its success was unalloyed with detraction. After its

utility was fully established, one company after another contested

its originality or the validity of his patent rights, which had

consequently to be protected by costly law suits. The first of these

took place at Louisville, Kentucky, in August, 1848. The owners of the

Morse system arranged to construct a line from that town to Nashville,

Tennessee; and Henry O’Reilly, supported by a company, constructed a

rival line, and called it the People’s Line, which they at first tried

to work by a piece of electrical apparatus that was only a modification

of the Morse system, the principle of which they contended they were

justified in using on the ground that it did not originate with Morse.

After a patent trial of the case, the court granted an injunction

against the O’Reilly Company, and sustained the validity of the Morse

patent. The Supreme Court of the United States, on appeal, confirmed

this decision in January, 1854. The court held it as established by

evidence that “early in the spring of 1837 Morse invented his plan for

combining two or more electric or galvanic circuits, with independent

batteries, for the purpose of overcoming the diminished force of

electro-magnetism in long circuits, that there is reasonable ground

for believing that he had so far completed his invention that the

whole process, combination, powers, and machinery were arranged in his

mind, and that the delay in bringing it out arose from want of means.”

The court also held that “neither the inquiries Morse made nor the

information or advice he received from men of science, in the course

of his researches, impair his right to the character of an inventor.

No invention can possibly be made, consisting of a combination of

different elements of power, without a thorough knowledge of the

properties of each of them, and the mode in which they operate upon

each other. A very high degree of scientific knowledge and the nicest

skill in the mechanic arts are combined in the electro-magnetic

telegraph and were necessary to bring it into successful operation. It

is the high praise of Professor Morse that he has been able by a new

combination of known powers, of which electro-magnetism is one, to

discover a method by which intelligible marks or signs may be printed

at a distance.” Such were the sort of compliments that the Supreme

Court bestowed upon Professor Morse, while they amply vindicated the

validity of his patents.

Another case was heard at Philadelphia in September, 1851. It was

an action brought by the Magnetic Telegraph Company, who used the

Morse patent, against Henry J. Rogers and others who worked a line of

telegraph from Washington to New York on the system of Alexander Bain.

This ingenious but unlucky invention, which Mr. Bain made in 1846, was

represented as capable of transmitting from 1,000 to 2,000 letters a

minute. By means of a machine, holes were stamped in a long strip of

paper, and each hole or group of holes represented a particular letter.

The paper was coiled on a wooden roller, from which it passed to a

metal roller; the mechanism was so arranged that two metallic points

underneath the paper passed through the holes as they moved along, and

thus touching the metal of the roller, imparted sufficient electricity

to make a signal at the distant end of the wire; but when the points

only touched the paper no electricity passed. This rapid alternation

was made to indicate signals. In the recipient apparatus, which marked

the signals at the distant end of the connecting wire, the strip of

paper used was first soaked in dilute sulphuric acid, and then in a

solution of prussiate of potash; two metallic points pressed on that

paper, and when electricity passed through these points, it discoloured

the chemically prepared paper and left a number of dark spots on it;

but when no electricity passed no spots were produced. In America it

was alleged that those who used this apparatus violated Morse’s patent

by forming their alphabet and figures (though using chemicals instead

of ink) in the same way that Morse did--by dots and lines, although

the same dots and lines did not in both systems represent the same

letter or figure. The claim of Professor Morse as the inventor of the

principle of the dot and dash alphabet was consequently disputed by

the defendants. But the judges held that there was no one person whose

invention had been spoken of by witnesses or referred to in any book as

involving the principle of Morse’s discovery but must yield precedence

to him, and that neither Steinheil, nor Cooke and Wheatstone, nor Davy,

nor Dyer, nor Henry had, when the Morse invention was consummated early

in the spring of 1837, made a recording telegraph of any sort. In this

case the evidence filled over a thousand printed pages; and in other

trials the evidence filled many hundreds of pages.

Only in one case did a rival inventor establish valid claims to

originality. This was Mr. Royal E. House, the inventor of the printing

telegraph, which was described in 1851, when it came into use, as one

of the wonders of the age. He invented a machine which, when a message

was transmitted by electric currents over a single wire, printed the

words in Roman letters that any person could read. For that invention

House applied for a patent in 1846, but was refused it on the ground

that his specification in some points clashed with that of Morse. It

was not till towards the end of 1848 that he got a patent which dated

from April, 1846. He was a self-taught man, who was confined to his

dwelling-house with an affection of the eyes during most of the six

years that he had been engaged in constructing his instrument. The

sending apparatus for despatching messages resembled a pianette, in

which each key represented a letter of the alphabet, and the sender had

simply to press down the key representing any desired letter, and the

receiving apparatus at the other end of the telegraph wire printed that

letter on a strip of paper. The electric current moved a wheel around

the edge of which were the letters of the alphabet in type properly

inked; and when the particular letter desired came round to the point

nearest the paper tape, the letter was by self-acting mechanism pressed

against it, causing the letter to be printed on the tape. It was

stated that 160 letters could be transmitted and printed in that way

in a minute. The first line of telegraph worked by the House apparatus

was completed in August, 1850, by the Boston and New York Telegraph

Company. Proceedings were at once taken against that company by the

owner of the Morse patent, of which the House apparatus was alleged to

be an infringement. Judge Woodbury, after hearing much evidence and

argument, came to the conclusion that the two methods of telegraphing

differed as much as writing differed from printing. He said the Morse

apparatus was less complicated and more easily comprehended; it could

be readily understood by most mechanics and men of science; while

the House machine was so much more difficult to comprehend in its

operations that it required days, if not weeks, to master it. At the

same time he declared that House had given “letters to lightning,” as

well as “lightning to letters.” While he admitted that the principle

of the House telegraph was not new, although now ingeniously applied

and worked by a new power, he gave Morse every credit for originality

in his invention, and decided in the end that the one was not an

infringement of the other.

The Morse alphabet, the originality of which was practically

undisputed, has not only been found universally useful for telegraphic

purposes, but has been successfully used for signalling intelligence

where no electric telegraph was available. Its characters have been

exhibited from lighthouses in long and short flashes of electric light

to tell the lonely mariner in the darkness of night the name of the

coast he was passing; while in lands where the electric telegraph is

unknown it has enabled a revival of the old semaphore system to be

worked with great advantages. When the British squadron entered Burmah

in the end of 1885, communication was kept up between the different

portions of the forces by means of the heliostat and heliograph,

sun-signalling instruments, which displayed to distant stations dots

or dashes of light forming the Morse alphabet. In the heliograph the

signalling was effected by altering the angle of the mirror which

reflected the light; while in the heliostat the requisite flash was

transmitted by opening temporarily a shutter, which when shut obscured

the light. The Morse alphabet thus enables distant stations to speak by

means of light as well as electricity.

At the time when the laying of the Atlantic cable was absorbing

public attention, Professor Morse was enjoying the fruits of his

previous labours. Rewards and honours were freely bestowed on him.

During his long and often disheartening struggle with adversity, he

was not without honour in his own and in other countries. In 1835 he

was elected a corresponding member of the Historical Institute of

France; in 1837 he was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Fine

Arts of Belgium; in 1839 he received the great silver medal of the

Paris Academy of Industry for his invention of the telegraph; in 1841

he was made a corresponding member of the Washington Institute for

the Promotion of Science; in 1842 he was awarded the gold medal of

the American Institute for his experiments demonstrating submarine

telegraphy; in 1845 he was made a corresponding member of the

Archæological Society of Belgium; in 1847 he was made an honorary

Doctor of Laws of Yale College; in 1849 he was elected a fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Boston, and so on.

What he wanted during these years was emolument, and now that had come

to him after long years of patient expectation. Though his patent

was not put in profitable operation till 1846, he received before the

date of its expiration, 1854, a sum of 90,874 dollars, and during the

seven following years, for which it was renewed, over 70,000 dollars.

His fame had now become world-wide, and foreign honours were bestowed

upon him by the chief European sovereigns. In June, 1856, he visited

England, and was delighted to meet once more with several of his old

artist friends: men who had befriended him when in humble circumstances

he showed a special pleasure in meeting now, when he had attained

pre-eminent success in another vocation. From London he proceeded to

Copenhagen, where the King of Denmark, Frederick VII., presented him

with the Cross of a Knight of the Danneborg. He was thence invited to

Russia by the Emperor Alexander II., who sent his carriage to convey

him from the quay on landing to the Imperial Palace, where he was

treated as an honoured guest. Then he went to Berlin, where he again

met the author of the _Cosmos_, Alexander von Humboldt, who entertained

him hospitably, and presented him with a portrait of himself on the

margin of which he had written as an inscription the homage of his high

and affectionate esteem for Mr. S. F. B. Morse, “whose philosophical

and useful labours have rendered his name illustrious in two worlds.”

Returning to London in September, he was next month entertained at a

public banquet in the Albion Tavern on the same day that he received

the announcement that the Emperor Napoleon had made him a Chevalier

of the Legion of Honour. At that banquet Mr. W. F. Cooke stated that

Professor Morse stood alone in America as the originator and carrier

out of a grand conception; but that not content with giving the benefit

of his conception to his own country and Canada, he threatened to go

still further, and, if Englishmen would not do it, to carry telegraphic

communication across the Atlantic. Dr. O’Shaughnessy stated at the

banquet that he had made a journey from India to England in order

to introduce into India the system of telegraphing which had been

perfected by Professor Morse. It was this gentleman who, according to

his own statement, erected in April and May, 1839, “the first long

line of telegraph ever constructed in any country” in the vicinity of

Calcutta. His line was twenty-one miles long, and included 7,000 feet

of river circuit. In after years he was accustomed to state that it was

the experiments performed on that line which removed all reasonable

doubts regarding the practicability of working electric telegraphs

through enormous distances,--“a question then and for three years later

disputed by high authorities, and regarded generally with contemptuous

scepticism.” After the experiments were completed and published, the

line was taken down. It may therefore be said of Dr. O’Shaughnessy that

he was in a double sense the father of Indian telegraphy, and as such

he received the honour of knighthood.

It thus appears that the three men who were the pioneers in

practical telegraphy were Morse in America, Wheatstone in England,

and O’Shaughnessy in India. In after ages it may be a question of

biographical interest whether these three men, whose triumphs took

place in scenes so far apart, ever met together. A similar question has

been asked of another constellation of great men. “It is a remarkable

fact,” says Sir David Brewster, “in the history of astronomy, that

three of its most distinguished professors were contemporaries.

Galileo was the contemporary of Tycho during thirty-seven years and

of Kepler during fifty-nine years of his life. Galileo was born seven

years before Kepler, and survived him nearly the same time. We have

not learned that the intellectual triumvirate of the age enjoyed any

opportunity of mutual congratulation. What a privilege it would have

been to have contrasted the aristocratic dignity of Tycho with the

reckless ease of Kepler, and the manly and impetuous mien of the

Italian sage.” It is possible that three or four centuries hence

similar speculations may be indulged in with respect to the group of

remarkable men who made the electric telegraph a practical success in

different parts of the world. It may therefore be worth while here to

state that there is no record of Professor Wheatstone and Professor

Morse ever having met personally either for mutual congratulation

or recrimination. In several respects they were men of like

qualities--modest, unselfish, persevering, versatile, and ingenious

in everything except extemporaneous public speaking--a similitude

which might perhaps be held to account for the fact that there was

no love lost between them, if it be true, as Saint Pierre contends,

that men are more attached to those qualities that are the complement

of their own than to those that are the counterpart of their own--an

observation that would not apply to the three professors of astronomy.

Anyhow, the absence of Professor Wheatstone from the banquet given to

Professor Morse in London in 1856 was publicly commented on at the time

in the leading English journal, to which a member of the committee

wrote, in reply, that “it was intended to pay all honour to Professor

Wheatstone, but to the regret of every one at the dinner he was unable

to attend: his pre-eminent merits as an electrical engineer were

repeatedly acknowledged during the evening, and always with the warmest

reception by the whole company.” Nevertheless, in the calm perspective

of history posterity will probably regard that opportunity for mutual

congratulation as a privilege that ought not to have been lost.

Professor Morse said in 1856 that it was not in England alone that

he had experienced unwonted kindness, but in every place he had

visited,--in Copenhagen, in St. Petersburgh, in Berlin, throughout

Germany, Belgium, France, he had everywhere received distinguished

marks of regard--and that he was unable to recall a single unpleasant

occurrence to mar the gratifying impression which he carried with him

to his Transatlantic home. The first foreign honour he received as an

acknowledgment of his invention came from the Sultan of Turkey, who

sent him the decoration, set in diamonds, of the Order of Glory, and

this was the first decoration which the Sultan conferred on an American

citizen. Italy bestowed on him the Cross of a Knight of Saints Lazaro

and Mauritio; Prussia the Gold Medal of Scientific Merit in a gold

snuff-box; Spain the Cross of Knight Commander de Numero of the Order

of Isabella; Austria the Gold Medal of Scientific Merit; and Portugal

the Cross of a Knight of the Tower and Sword.

In 1858 he again left New York and went to Paris, where his

fellow-countrymen entertained him at a banquet. A movement was then set

on foot to make him some recompense for the use of his invention in

Europe. At a conference of delegates of ten leading Governments, held

in Paris to consider the subject, Count Walewski said that the honorary

distinctions which several sovereigns had conferred on Professor Morse

had beyond doubt been appreciated by him as valuable marks of high

esteem; but these had been insufficient to supply the place of the

pecuniary compensation which his sacrifices and his labours seemed

destined to procure him, and which were so much the more justly

called for, since electro-magnetic telegraphing,--independently of

the immense services which it renders by the rapidity of transmitting

news and correspondence,--also brings to the Governments that have a

monopoly of it profits in money which are already considerable, and

must continue to increase. With a conviction that there was justice

as well as generosity in acceding to the claim of Mr. Morse, who was

now subject to the infirmities of age, after devoting the whole of his

small fortune to the experiments and voyages necessary to arrive at

the discovery and application of his process, the Emperor’s Government

had solicited the various States, to whose gratitude Professor Morse

had a right, to contribute to the remuneration due to him. It was

agreed that the different Governments should contribute in proportion

to the number of instruments that they had in use; and it was found

that they had altogether 1,284 Morse instruments in operation, of

which France had the highest number, namely 462. On September 1st,

1858, Count Walewski addressed to him the following letter from the

French Ministry of Foreign Affairs:--“I have the honour to announce

with lively satisfaction that a sum of 400,000 francs will be remitted

to you in four annuities, in the name of France, Austria, Belgium,

the Netherlands, Piedmont, Russia, the Holy See, Sweden, Tuscany,

and Turkey, as an honorary gratuity, and as a reward, altogether

personal, of your useful labours. Nothing can better mark than this

collective act of reward the sentiment of public gratitude which your

invention has so justly excited. The Emperor had already given you a

testimonial of his high esteem when he conferred on you, more than a

year ago, the decoration of a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. You

will find a new mark of it in the initiative which His Majesty wished

that his Government should take on this occasion, and the announcement

I now make to you is a brilliant proof of the eager and sympathetic

response that his proposition has met with from the States I have just

enumerated.”

The latter years of the Professor’s life were mostly spent in

retirement at his country residence--a delightful house, near

Poughkeepsie, on the eastern bank of the Hudson, where he appeared

to possess everything that could promote his comfort or gratify his

taste. It was an Italian villa, called Locust Grove, surrounded by

very picturesque grounds containing deep ravines and lofty forest

trees. Here he cultivated beautiful gardens, and adorned the spot with

all the chasteness of an artist’s taste. Here he was surrounded by a

lively and affectionate family. Here he delighted to entertain his old

friends with accounts of his early struggles and disappointments. Here

he was placed in communication with the busy world of work and thought

by means of the agency which his own genius had created--the Morse

telegraph. But here, amid the repose of Nature, he was not idle. In the

sunshine of fortune and fame he was as sympathetic and kind as when

under the chilly blasts of adversity. He knew well that

“’Tis easy to resign a toilsome place

But not to manage leisure with a grace;

Absence of occupation is not rest,

A mind quite vacant is a mind distress’d.”

Much of his leisure time was spent in assisting struggling inventors

and artists, and in doing works of charity. He purposely devoted

one-tenth of his income to Christian benevolence, and in honour of his

father he gave 10,000 dollars as an endowment for a Morse lectureship

on the relation of the Bible to the sciences. Occasionally he was

drawn from his retirement to receive some tribute of respect from

his fellow-countrymen; for in his own country where no titles or

decorations are conferred, the sunset of his useful life was made

radiant by some exceptional marks of public favour.

On the eve of the last day of 1868 he was entertained at a public

banquet in Delmonico’s, New York, when some of the most eminent men

in the United States paid high tributes to his genius. In the toast

of “Our Guest,” Professor Morse was described as the man of science

who explored the laws of Nature, wrested electricity from her embrace,

and made it a missionary in the cause of human progress. Professor

Morse was as rich in humility as his admirers were in eulogy. He said

that, in tracing the birth and pedigree of the American telegraph,

“American is not the highest term of the series that connects the past

with the present. There is at least one higher term,--the highest of

all,--which cannot and must not be ignored. If not a sparrow falls to

the ground without a definite purpose in the plans of Infinite Wisdom,

can the creation of an instrument so vitally affecting the interests

of the whole human race have an origin less humble than the Father of

every good and perfect gift? I am sure I have the sympathy of such

an assembly as is here gathered together, if in all humility, and in

the sincerity of a grateful heart, I use the words of Inspiration in

ascribing honour and praise to Him to whom first of all and most of all

it is pre-eminently due. ‘Not unto us, not unto us, but to God be all

the glory’--not what hath man, but ‘what hath God wrought?’”

In April, 1870, it was announced in the public press that the telegraph

operators of the United States intended to raise a memorial of the

father of their craft, and from all parts of civilised America

subscriptions for that purpose were sent to the executive committee, of

which Mr. Jas. D. Reid was the chairman. When, six months afterward,

information of the movement was officially communicated to the aged

Professor, he replied:--“I am astonished and deeply impressed with

the evidence of such an unexampled universality of kind and friendly

feeling from those whom I have loved to call _my children_. I know by

early experience some of their trials, and can therefore sympathise

with them; and I should be false to my convictions if to those who have

called me _Father_, I should be recreant in manifesting my grateful

thanks for their expressed sentiments of affection and respect.”

A bronze statue of him on a granite pedestal was erected in the Central

Park, New York, and was unveiled on June 10th, 1871, in the presence of

a vast multitude, by the Governor of Massachusetts, the State in which

the venerable inventor was born eighty years previously.

In the course of a long and eloquent address, Mr. Cullen Bryant

observed that it might be said that “the civilised world is already

full of memorials which speak the merit of our friend and the grandeur

and utility of his invention. Every telegraphic station is such a

memorial; every message sent from one of these stations to another

may be counted among the honours paid to his name. Every telegraphic

wire, strung from post to post, as it hums in the wind murmurs his

eulogy. But we are so constituted that we insist upon seeing the form

of that brow beneath which an active, restless, creative brain devised

the mechanism that was to subdue the most wayward of the elements to

the service of man, and make it his obedient messenger. We require to

see the eye that glittered with a thousand lofty hopes when the great

discovery was made, and the lips that curled with a smile of triumph

when it became certain that the lightning of the clouds would become

tractable to the most delicate touch. We demand to see the hand which

first strung the wire by whose means the slender currents of the

electric fluid were taught the alphabet of every living language--the

hand which pointed them to the spot where they were to inscribe and

leave their messages. All this we have in the statue which has this

day been unveiled to the eager gaze of the public, and in which the

artist has so skilfully and faithfully fulfilled his task as to satisfy

those who are the hardest to please--the most intimate friends of the

original. On behalf of the telegraphic workers of the Continent, who

have so nobly and affectionately provided it, I do now present it

to the authorities of the city of New York for perpetual and loving

care.” In accepting it, Mayor Hall said:--“Our Middle State city loves

to remember how her citizen Franklin modestly passed the portals of

the temple of electrical science; a southern city how her citizen

Whitney developed a cotton empire; a western city how her citizen

McCormick presented to agriculture its greatest boon; adjacent eastern

cities gratefully recall how their citizens Morton and Jackson blessed

humanity, and how Elias Howe lightened the toil of the poor. The genius

of these Americans changed the atmosphere of social life, which now is

not in any aspect the same as it was to the elder generation of this

Union. Their genius blessed food, raiment, and locomotion. But New York

cherishes more proudly and gratefully the thought that the genius of

her citizen Morse put all these inventions into world-wide service, and

is fast bringing together all the peoples who were dispersed at the

Tower of Babel.”

The venerable Professor also delivered a lengthy speech, during which

he said that the subscribers had “chosen to impersonate in my humble

effigy an invention which, cradled upon the ocean, had its birth

in an American ship. It was nursed and cherished not so much from

personal as from patriotic pride. Forecasting its future, even at

its birth, my most powerful stimulus to perseverance through all the

perils and trials of its early days--and they were neither few nor

insignificant--was the thought that it must inevitably be world-wide

in its application, and, moreover, that it would everywhere be hailed

as a grateful American gift to the nations. It is in this aspect of

the present occasion that I look upon your proceeding as intended, not

so much as homage to an individual as to the invention ‘whose lines,’

from America, ‘have gone out through all the earth, and their words

to the end of the world.’... It is but a few days since, that our

veritable antipodes became telegraphically united to us. We can speak

to and receive an answer in a few seconds of time from Hong Kong in

China, where 10 o’clock to-night here is 10 o’clock in the day there,

and it is perhaps a debatable question whether their 10 o’clock is

10 to-day or 10 to-morrow. China and New York are in interlocutory

communication. We know the fact, but can imagination realise it?”

At a public meeting held in the evening in the Academy of Music a

unique incident occurred. At 9 o’clock all the telegraph wires in

America, then measuring over 180,000 miles, with 6,000 stations,

were so connected together as to be in communication with a single

Morse instrument which stood on a table visible to the large audience

present. By means of this instrument the following message was

transmitted to all the stations:--“Greeting and thanks to the telegraph

fraternity throughout the land. Glory to God in the highest, on

earth peace, good will to men.” These words were transmitted by an

expert lady operator, and then Professor Morse stepped forward to the

instrument, and moved the handle so as to transmit the letters S. F. B.

Morse, a proceeding which evoked enthusiastic applause. Mr. W. Orton,

who presided, said: “Thus the Father of the Telegraph bids farewell

to his children.” The Professor afterwards delivered a long address,

recounting the chief events in the early history of his invention.

His continued interest and faith in the telegraph was evinced by a

characteristic letter, which he wrote on December 4th, 1871, to Mr.

Cyrus Field, who was then attending a Telegraphic Convention in Rome.

He said:--“The excitement occasioned by the visit of the Grand Duke

Alexis has but just ceased, and I have been wholly engrossed by the

various duties connected with his presence. I have wished for a few

calm moments to put on paper some thoughts respecting the doings of

the great Telegraphic Convention to which you are a delegate. The

telegraph has now assumed such a marvellous position in human affairs

throughout the world; its influences are so great and important in all

the varied concerns of nations, that its efficient protection from

injury has become a necessity. It is a powerful advocate for universal

peace. Not that of itself it can command a ‘Peace, be still,’ to the

angry waves of human passions, but that by its rapid interchange of

thought and opinion it gives the opportunity of explanations to acts

and to laws which in their ordinary wording often create doubt and

suspicion. Were there no means of quick explanation, it is readily

seen that doubt and suspicion, working on the susceptibilities of the

public mind, would engender misconception, hatred, and strife. How

important, then, that in the intercourse of nations there should be the

ready means at hand for prompt correction and explanation! Could there

not be passed in the great International Convention some resolution to

the effect that in whatever condition, whether of peace or war between

nations, the telegraph should be deemed a sacred thing, to be by common

consent effectually protected, both on land and beneath the waters?

In the interest of human happiness, of that ‘Peace on earth’ which,

in announcing the advent of the Saviour, the angels proclaimed, with

‘good will to men,’ I hope that the Convention will not adjourn without

adopting a resolution asking of the nations their united effective

protection to this great agent of civilisation. The mode and terms of

such resolution may be safely left to the intelligent members of the

honourable and distinguished Convention.” The reading of this letter

in the Convention was hailed with prolonged cheers for the writer of

it, and the letter was ordered to be printed among the records of the

Convention.

The death of his brother Sidney, a few days later, affected him

very much, and it then became evident that his own life was ebbing

away. While in this state he was asked to unveil a bronze statue of

Franklin, which Captain Albert de Groot had presented to the printers

of New York, and which was erected in front of the City Hall. Though

confined to bed when asked to unveil this statue, the Professor said

he would do it if he had to be lifted to the spot; and when he was

introduced to the vast concourse of people present at the ceremony as

“the distinguished inventor and pride of our country,” he stated that

no one had more reason to venerate the name of Franklin than himself,

and expressed a hope that Franklin’s illustrious example of devotion to

the interest of universal humanity might be the seed of further fruit

for the good of the world. Mr. Horace Greeley said that Professor Morse

seemed to have been raised up by Providence to be the continuer of the

great work of which Franklin was the beginner.

His exposure to the keen breeze blowing when he unveiled the Franklin

statue aggravated the neuralgia in his head, from which he suffered

intense pain. He gradually sank, and distracting pain was followed

by stupor. The Rev. Dr. Adams, of the Madison Square Presbyterian

Church, New York, of which the Professor was a member, attended him

in his illness, and afterwards gave the following account of his last

days:--“A short time ago he was occupied with other fellow-citizens

in acts of attention to a distinguished representative of the Royal

House of Russia. At the Holy Communion of this church next ensuing,

an occasion in which for domestic and personal reasons he felt an

extraordinary interest, at the close of the service he approached me

with more than usual warmth and pressure of the hand, and, with a

beaming countenance, said: ‘Oh, this is something better and greater

than standing before princes.’ His piety had the simplicity of

childhood. When his brother Sidney died last Christmas, he began to die

also. Through fear of exciting alarm and giving distress to his own

household, he did not speak so much to them as to some others, of his

expected departure, but he used to say familiarly to some with whom

he was ready to converse upon this subject, ‘I love to be studying

the Guide Book of the country to which I am going; I wish to know

more and more about it.’ A few days before his decease, in the privacy

of his chamber I spoke to him of the great goodness of God to him in

his remarkable life. ‘Yes; so good, so good,’ was the quick response;

‘and the best part of all is yet to come.’ Though spared more than

eighty years, he saw none of the infirmities of age, either of mind or

body. His delicate taste, his love for the beautiful, his fondness for

the fine arts, his sound judgment, his intellectual activities, his

public spirit, his intense interest in all that concerned the welfare

and the decoration of the city, his earnest advocacy of Christian

liberty throughout the world--all continued unimpaired to the last.

With perfect health and the full possession of every faculty, urbane

and courteous to all who knew him, there was no infelicity of temper

or manner such as sometimes befalls extreme age. Surrounded by a

young family, he was their genial friend and companion as well as

head, sympathising in all the simple and innocent pleasures that give

the charms to home. In particular qualities he had many equals and

superiors, but in that rare combination of qualities which, like the

harmony of colours in the finished picture, made him what he was, he

seems to have been unrivalled.”--On the 2nd of April, 1872,

“He passed from sunshine to the sunless land.”

His remains were interred in Greenwood Cemetery three days after his

death. The funeral service was held in Madison Square Presbyterian

Church, and the funeral was attended by representatives of the leading

telegraph companies in New York, of the Academy of Design, of the

Evangelical Alliance, the Chamber of Commerce, the Association for

the Advancement of Science and Art, and other public bodies. In the

House of Representatives a concurrent resolution was passed recording

profound regret at the death of “Professor Morse, whose distinguished

and varied abilities have contributed more than those of any other

person to the development and progress of the practical arts,” and

declaring that his purity of life, his loftiness of scientific aim,

and his resolute faith in truth, rendered it highly proper that the

Representatives and Senators should solemnly testify to his worth and

greatness. Mr. Wood, of New York city, being the only member then in

the House who voted in 1843 for the bill for the experimental telegraph

line, gave a sketch of the measure which enabled Professor Morse to

bring his invention to a practical test. Other admirers paid their

tributes of respect in verses, such as the following:--

“Men of every faith and nation

Honor, love, revere, admire

One who sought not adulation

When he chained the electric fire;

“Who, discouraged and defeated,

Bore it with a patient grace;

By no boastful pride elated,

When he conquered time and space.”

INDEX.

Acoustic figures, 117

Alpine adventures of Professor Tyndall, 60

Alps, accidents on, 65

America, electrical discoveries in, 231;

first line of telegraph in, 273;

telegraph in (_see_ Morse _and_ Telegraph);

visit of Professor Tyndall to, 74

Ampère’s electrical discoveries, 91;

proposed telegraph, 134

Aqueous vapour and radiant heat, 44

Arago’s electrical discoveries, 91

Atlantic cable, 193, 276, 292

Automatic telegraph, Wheatstone’s, 199

Bain, Alexander, inventions claimed by, 160, 185, 305

Baltimore and Washington telegraph, 273

Batteries described--Volta’s, 88;

Grove’s, 89;

Daniell’s, 128

Beer disease, 53

Bible descriptions of nature, 6

Biographies, use of, xi., xiv.

Blackwall telegraph, 167, 173

Brewster, Sir David’s account of first telegraph, 150;

on vision, 210;

improvement of stereoscope, 212

Bridge, Wheatstone, 164

Bryant, W. Cullen, on Morse and his telegraph, 252, 316

Cables, earliest, 187, 269, 292

Calorescence, 47

Carlyle, Thomas, reminiscences of, 99

Celtic genius and science, 7

Channel cable, first, 187, 191

Charges for telegraphing, 181

China, telegraph to, 317

Clark, Latimer, on first English telegraph, 152;

on Wheatstone’s single-needle telegraph, 167;

on Wheatstone’s works, 229

Clock, Wheatstone’s electro-magnetic, 160

Clouds, experiments in producing, 49

Concertina, invention of, 120

Congress, American, and telegraph, 263, 270

Cooke, W. F., account of his first connection with telegraph, 150,

152;

dispute with Wheatstone about telegraph, 134, 138, 146;

efforts to extend telegraph, 173;

formation of Electric Telegraph Company, 183

Cruikshank, George, on first telegraph, 141

Cryptograph, invention of, 219

Crystals, formation of, 96;

magnetic properties of, 24

Daniell, Professor, on Wheatstone’s first telegraph, 149

Daniell’s constant battery, 128

Day, Professor J., electrical lectures, 234

Dial telegraphs, Wheatstone’s, 158, 196

Diamagnetism discovered, 23;

investigated by Tyndall and others, 24, 29, 33

Dynamic radiation of heat, 43

Dynamo machine, invention of, 206

Earth as return circuit, 171;

rotatory motion, 217

Earth’s magnetic force, 26

Electric currents, measurement of, 93, 163

Electric telegraph. _See_ Telegraph.

Electric Telegraph Company, formation of, 183

Electrical biographies, use of, xi.

Electrical heat and light, 89

Electricians, distribution of, xii., 231

Electricity, production of, 22, 88, 91, 94, 232;

force of, 163;

velocity of, 93

Ellsworth, Miss, connection with Morse telegraph, 272, 277

Enchanted lyre, Wheatstone’s, 111

Evolution, early days of Darwinian theory of, 97

Exploder, Wheatstone’s, 186

Explosion of mines by electricity, 185

Faraday’s associations with Professor Tyndall, 26, 30, 102;

electrical and magnetic discoveries, 23;

lecture on scientific theories, 32;

on Wheatstone’s telegraph, 198

Forbes, Professor J. D., on glaciers, 37, 40

Frankland, Dr., associated with Professor Tyndall, 15;

glacier theory by, 45

Gale, Professor, assisted Morse with telegraph, 249

Gases, radiation and absorption of heat by, 42;

sounding power of, 58

Gauss and Weber’s telegraph, 136

Germ theory, 51, 98

German scientists, 21, 27

Germany, science in, between 1840 and 1850, 16;

student life in, 17;

telegraph in, 136

Glacier phenomena, 38

Harmonium, Wheatstone’s improvements in, 123

Heat, radiant, investigation of, 42, 58

House, R. E., printing telegraph by, 306

Induced electricity, discovery of, by Faraday, 22

Inventions, popular accounts of origin of, 167;

Morse’s definition of, 280;

public appreciation of, 281, 302

Irish scientists, 7

Jackson, Dr., disputes with Morse origin of telegraph, 244, 256

Kaleidophone, 117

Light, velocity of, 125

Lightning conductors, 131

Longitude determined by telegraph, 287

Magnetic attraction, 28

Magnetic exploder, 186

Magnetisation of light, 93

Magnetism and diamagnetism, 23, 29;

of the earth, 26

Magnetism and electricity, 22, 91

Magnetism, mechanical theory of, 93

Magneto-electric machine, Wheatstone’s, 159

Magnets, interaction of, 91;

lengthened by electricity, 92

Marburg, student life in, 17

Measurement of electric currents, Wheatstone’s plans for, 124, 163

Metals, new, discovered by electric spark analysis, 127

Microphone, first use of word, 119

Morse alphabet, uses of, 307

Morse, Professor S. F. B.:

artist, how he became an, 236;

success as, 243;

why he ceased to be an, 279

Atlantic cable, connection with, 276, 292

birth and education of, 233

Congress’s action towards, 263, 270

death of, 320

difficulties in constructing his telegraph, 246;

in introducing it, 268, 281

electrical studies, 234, 242, 244

first line of telegraph constructed by, 273

funeral of, 321

honours conferred on, 308, 311

Jackson, Dr., controversy with, 244, 256

law-suits to protect patent rights, 303

London visited by, 236, 295

patents, 259, 265;

defence of, 303

pictures painted by, 237

photography, early connection with, 266

proscribed German student’s case, 253

rewards of, 309, 313

statue of, 315

telegraph, distinguishing features of, 279;

first conception of, 244;

first public description of, 260;

labours to improve, 247;

practical working of, 260;

public trial of, 268;

refusal of, by American Government, 283;

spread of, 284;

uses of, 286;

working of, 289

trial of first telegraph line, 277

submarine cable, first, 269, 276, 292

Needle telegraph, 143, 167

Niagara visited by Prof. Tyndall, 75

Ohm’s work and theory, 140

O’Shaughnessy, Dr., introduction of telegraph in India, 310

Palmerston, Lord, on telegraph, 194

Pasteur’s experiments with germs, 52

Photography, invention of, 266;

introduction of, 211, 267

Piz Morteratch, accident upon, 67

Polarised light, Wheatstone’s experiments, 222

Printing telegraph, Wheatstone’s, 161

Proscribed German student, Morse’s account of, 253

Pseudoscope, invention of, 216

Queenswood College, 15

Railway mania of 1845, 13

Recording telegraph, Morse’s, 277, 290;

Wheatstone’s, 199

Relay, first accounts of, 141, 249

Resistance measurer, 163

Return circuit, 171

Revolution effected by electricity, ix.

Revolving mirror, uses of, 124

Rheostat, Wheatstone’s, 165

Ricardo, J. L., connection with telegraph, 183

Ronalds’s telegraph, 110

Rosa, Monte, ascent of, 61

Royal Institution, changes at, 84;

lectures by Tyndall at, 30, 38, 87

Scientific attainments, recognition of, in England, 35

Scientific discovery, the pursuit of, 79

Sea-water, varying tints of, 56

Semaphore telegraph, 180

Slaty cleavage, 36

Smoke respirator, invention of, 54

Sound, transmission of, 56;

Wheatstone on, 116

Sounder, the Morse, 291

Spectrum analysis of electric spark, 127

Standards, electrical, 164

Steinheil’s telegraph, 136

Stereoscope, invention of, 210;

improvement of, 212;

principle of, 215

Submarine cables, earliest experiments with, 187, 269, 276, 292

Tawell, murderer, apprehended by use of telegraph, 178

Telegraph, adoption of, by public, 173, 283

automatic telegraph of Wheatstone, 199

cables, earliest, 189, 269, 292;

illustration of working, 95

charges for, 181

dial, invented by Wheatstone, 158;

improvement of, 196

early forecasts of, 106;

early achievements of, 173, 277, 284

electro-magnetic, Morse’s, 248, 277, 290;

Wheatstone’s, 158

extension of, 173, 181, 284, 292

history of, 134, 144, 153, 173, 244, 260, 282, 292

idea and invention of, 105, 244

longitude ascertained by, 287

Morse’s recording, 244, 260, 280, 290

needle, 143, 167

origin of, 134, 138, 142, 150, 244, 292

pedigree of, 108

recording, 199, 246, 260, 268, 277, 290

relay, 141, 249

sounder, the Morse, 290

Wheatstone’s first needle, 143;

dial, 158;

printing, 161;

recording automatic, 199

Telephone, first, 115

Thermo-electric pile, 129, 205

Thermometers, self-registering, 221

Tyndall, Professor J.:

ancestors of, 3

anecdotes of, 34, 93, 97

birth and education of, 4

daring experiment by, 47

description of, by George Ripley, 72

diamagnetism, explanation of, 24, 29

duty, sense of, 19

endowments for scientific purposes, 80

Faraday, associations with, 26, 30, 102

Germany, student life in, 17, 21

German scientific friends of, 21, 26

investigation of diamagnetism, 24, 29;

germs, 51, 98;

glacier phenomena, 38;

radiant heat, 42, 58;

sea-water tints, 56;

slaty cleavage, 36;

sound, 56

marriage of, 86

Ordnance Survey joined, 9

Pasteur, remarks on, 52

pecuniary assistance declined by, 20, 102

Presidential address to British Association, 81

Professor of Natural Philosophy, appointed, 31

radiant heat, on, 42, 58

railway surveying by, 12

reminiscences of Thomas Carlyle, 99

Royal Institution, at, 30, 85

scientific adviser to Trinity House, 102

scientific examiner at Woolwich, 35

smoke respirator, invention of, 54

teaching at Queenswood College, 15;

elsewhere, 96

travels of, in the Alps, 60;

at Vesuvius, 70;

in America, 71, 74

vindication of scientific education, 35.

working habits, 12

youthful studies, 8, 10, 21

Velocity of electricity, 93, 124;

of light, 125

Vesuvius, visited in 1868, 70

Vision, Wheatstone’s elucidations of, 210

Voltaic battery described, 88;

discovered, 110

West, Benjamin, associated with Morse, 236

Wheatstone, Professor Charles:

birth of, 111

bridge, 164

cryptograph, 219

death and funeral, 228

deciphering secret document, 220

dispute with W. F. Cooke about telegraph, 134, 138, 146, 153

electricity, first studies in, 123

enchanted lyre of, 111

harmonium improvements, 123

honours conferred on, 166, 226

invention of chronoscope, 162;

concertina, 120;

cryptograph, 219;

dynamo, 206;

electric clock, 160;

enchanted lyre, 111;

kaleidophone, 117;

magnetic exploder, 186;

magneto-electric machine, 159;

polar clock, 223;

pseudoscope, 216;

stereoscope, 210;

telegraph, 134 (_see_ Telegraph);

thermometers, 221

inventions, periodicity of, 223

investigation of algebra, 224;

Chladni figures, 117;

earth’s motion, 217;

mental philosophy, 117;

musical instruments, 120;

polarised light, 222;

sound, 116, 118;

submarine cables, 187;

submarine explosions, 185;

thermo-electric pile, 129, 205;

tone, 224;

vision, 210

investigations, latest and incomplete, 224

lightning conductors, opinions on, 131

magnetic exploder, 186

measurement of force of electric currents, 163

originality of his telegraph, 134, 138, 144

patents of, 142, 154, 160, 167, 196

peculiarities of, 225

Professor of Experimental Physics at King’s College, 123

revolving mirror, 124

speaking machines, improvements in, 117

spectrum analysis of electric light, 127

submarine cables, early experiments with, 187

telegraph, diagram of first, 141;

history of, 144, 153;

origin of, 134, 138, 142, 153

telegraphic instruments, automatic, 199;

dial, 158, 196;

needle, 141, 145, 167;

printing, 161

thermo-electric pile, 129, 205

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Transcriber’s Note:

Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like

this_. Those in bold are surrounded by equal signs, =like this=.

Footnotes were renumbered sequentially and were moved to the end

of the chapter. Obvious printing errors, such as backwards, upside

down, reversed order, or partially printed letters and punctuation,

were corrected. Final stops missing at the end of sentences and

abbreviations were added.

Words may have multiple spelling variations or inconsistent hyphenation

in the text. These were left unchanged. Jargon, dialect, obsolete and

alternative spellings were left unchanged.

Spelling corrections:

Keithly to Keighley

Leipsic to Leipsig

Alantic to Atlantic

vice-presedent to vice-president

patient to patent

Presidental to Presidential

It is worthy of remark that just about a century before the invention