John Munro

“ One day while Morse and Dr. Jackson, with a few more, sat round the luncheon table in the cabin, he began to talk of the experiments he had witnessed. Some one asked if the speed of the electricity was lessened by its passage through a long wire, and Dr. Jackson, referring to a trial of Faraday, replied that the current was apparently instantaneous. Morse, who probably remembered his old lessons in the subject, now remarked that if the presence of the electricity could be rendered visible at any point of the circuit he saw no reason why intelligence might not be sent by this means. ”

“ Morse, who regarded the record as the distinctive feature of his invention, was very hostile to the practice; but Nature was too many for him. The mode of interpreting by sound was the easier and more economical of the two; and Vail, with his mechanical instinct, adopted it. He produced an instrument in which there is no paper or marking device, and the message is simply sounded by the lever of the armature striking on its metal stops. At present the Morse recorder is rarely used in comparison with the 'sounder.'
The original telegraph of Morse, exhibited in 1837, has become an archaic form. ”

“ Sleek men of capital, looking with suspicion on the meagre furniture and miserable apparatus, withheld their patronage; but humbler citizens invested their hard-won earnings, the Magnetic Telegraph Company was incorporated, and the line was built. ”

“ In France he was equally unfortunate. His instrument was exhibited by Arago at a meeting of the Institute, and praised by Humboldt and Gay-Lussac; but the French patent law requires the invention to be at work in France within two years, and when Morse arranged to erect a telegraph line on the St. Germain Railway, the Government declined to sanction it, on the plea that the telegraph must become a State monopoly.
All his efforts to introduce the invention into Europe were futile, and he returned disheartened to the United States on April 15, 1839. ”

“ The length of line through which Morse could work his apparatus was an important point to be determined, for it was known that the current grows feebler in proportion to the resistance of the wire it traverses. Morse saw a way out of the difficulty, as Davy, Cooke, and Wheatstone did, by the device known as the relay. Were the current too weak to effect the marking of a message, it might nevertheless be sufficiently strong to open and close the circuit of a local battery which would print the signals. ”

“ In the summer of 1871, the Telegraphic Brotherhood of the World erected a statue to his honour in the Central Park, New York. Delegates from different parts of America were present at the unveiling; and in the evening there was a reception at the Academy of Music, where the first recording telegraph used on the Washington to Baltimore line was exhibited. The inventor himself appeared, and sent a message at a small table, which was flashed by the connected wires to the remotest parts of the Union, It ran: 'Greeting and thanks to the telegraph fraternity throughout the world. ”

“ Morse was invited to Speedwell with his apparatus, that the judge might see it for himself, and the question of a partnership was mooted. Two thousand dollars were required to procure the patents and construct an instrument to bring before the Congress. In spite of a financial depression, the judge was brave enough to lend his assistance, and on September 23, 1837, an agreement was signed between the inventor and Alfred Vail, by which the latter was to construct, at his own expense, a model for exhibition to a Committee of Congress, and to secure the necessary patents for the United States. ”

“ Love may have been a still stronger motive for its acquisition. So he tried his hand at invention, and, in conjunction with his brother Sidney, produced what was playfully described as 'Morse's Patent Metallic Double-Headed Ocean-Drinker and Deluge-Spouter Pump-Box.' The pump was quite as much admired as the 'Jupiter,' and it proved as great a failure. ”

“ When we remember that even by this time Vail had entirely altered the system of signals, and introduced the dot-dash code, we cannot but regard this as a stinted acknowledgment of his colleague's work. But the man who conceives the central idea, and cherishes it, is apt to be niggardly in allowing merit to the assistant whose mechanical skill is able to shape and put it in practice; while, on the other hand, the assistant is sometimes inclined to attach more importance to the working out than it deserves. ”

“ The demonstration convinced them, and many were the expressions of amazement from their lips. Some said, 'The world is coming to an end,' as people will when it is really budding, and putting forth symptoms of a larger life. ”

“ A boy of fifteen, he made a water-colour sketch of his family sitting round the table; and while a student at Yale he relieved his father, who was far from rich, of a part of his education by painting miniatures on ivory, and selling them to his companions at five dollars a-piece. Before he was nineteen he completed a painting of the 'Landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth,' which formerly hung in the office of the Mayor, at Charlestown, Massachusetts.
On graduating at Yale, in 1810, he devoted himself to Art, and became a pupil of Washington Allston, the well-known American painter. ”

“ The following year, 1846, another line was run from Philadelphia to Baltimore by Mr. Henry O'Reilly, of Rochester, N.Y., an acute pioneer of the telegraph. In the course of ten years the Atlantic States were covered by a straggling web of lines under the control of thirty or forty rival companies working different apparatus, such as that of Morse, Bain, House, and Hughes, but owing to various causes only one or two were paying a dividend. ”

“ He became acquainted with the voltaic battery through the lectures of his friend, Professor Sieliman; and we are told that during one of his vacations at Yale he made a series of electrical experiments with Dr. Dwight. Some years later he resumed these studies under his friend Professor James Freeman Dana, of the University of New York, who exhibited the electro-magnet to his class in 1827, and also under Professor Renwick, of Columbia College.
Art seems to have had an equal if not a greater charm than science for Morse at this period. ”

“ In 1883 its capital amounted to 80,000,000 dollars, and it now possesses a virtual monopoly of telegraphic communication in the United States.
Morse did not limit his connections to land telegraphy. In 1854, when Mr. Cyrus Field brought out the Atlantic Telegraph Company, to lay a cable between Europe and America, he became its electrician, and went to England for the purpose of consulting with the English engineers on the execution of the project. But his instrument was never used on the ocean lines, and, indeed, it was not adapted for them. ”

“ Moreover, the ten European powers in special congress awarded him 400,000 francs (some 80,000 dollars) , as an expression of their gratitude: honorary banquets were a common thing to the man who had almost starved through his fidelity to an idea.
But beyond his emoluments as a partner in the invention, Alfred Vail had no recompense. Morse, perhaps, was somewhat jealous of acknowledging the services of his 'mechanical assistant,' as he at one time chose to regard Vail. ”

“ The practical outcome of the trial was that the Chairman reported a Bill appropriating 30,000 dollars for the erection of an experimental line between Washington and Baltimore. Mr. Smith was admitted to a fourth share in the invention, and resigned his seat in Congress to become legal adviser to the inventors. Claimants to the invention of the telegraph now began to spring up, and it was deemed advisable for Mr. Smith and Morse to proceed to Europe and secure the foreign patents. Alfred Vail undertook to provide an instrument for exhibition in Europe. ”

“ To decipher the message, a special code-book or dictionary would be required. In order to transmit the currents through the line, he devised a mechanical sender, in which the circuit would be interrupted by a series of types carried on a port-rule or composing-stick, which travelled at a uniform speed. ”

“ Such relays and local batteries, fixed at intervals along the line, as post-horses on a turnpike, would convey the message to an immense distance. 'If I can succeed in working a magnet ten miles,' said Morse,'I can go round the globe. It matters not how delicate the movement may be.'
According to his own statement, he devised the relay in 1836 or earlier; but it was not until the beginning of 1837 that he explained the device, and showed the working of his apparatus to his friend, Mr. ”