HOW THE ELECTRIC TELE

GRAPH WAS INVENTED.

THE year 1832 is only sixty years ago in time, yet since then there has been a striking development of conveniences, rapidity of travel, and arrangements for the diffusion of intelligence. People then still travelled in great part by aid of horses, the railroad having just begun its marvellous career. News, which now fly over continents and under oceans at lightning speed, then jogged on at stage-coach rates of progress, creeping where they now fly. On the ocean, steam was beginning to battle with wind and wave, but the ocean racer was yet a far-off dream, and mariners still put their trust in sails much more than in the new-born contrivances which were preparing to revolutionize travel. But the wand of the enchanter had been waved; steam had come, and with it the new era of progress had dawned. And another great agent in the development of civilization was about to come. Electricity, which during all previous time had laughed at bonds, was soon to become man's slave, and to be made his purveyor of news. It is the story of this chaining of the lightning, and forcing it to become the swift conveyer of man's sayings and doings, that we have here to tell.

In the far remote period named-if we measure time by deeds, not by years--a packet-ship, the Sully, was making its deliberate way across the Atlantic from Havre to New York. Its passenger list was not large, the ocean had not yet become a busy highway of the continents,—but among them were some persons in whom we are interested. One of these was a Boston doctor, Charles T. Jackson by name. A second was a New York artist, named Samuel F. B. Morse. The last-named gentleman had been a student at Yale, where he became greatly interested in chemistry and some other sciences. He had studied the art of painting under Benjamin West in London, had practised it in New York, had long been president of the National Academy of the Arts of Design; and was now on his way home after a second period of residence in Europe as a student of art.

An interesting conversation took place one day in the cabin of the Sully. Dr. Jackson spoke of Ampère's experiments with the electro-magnet; of how Franklin had sent electricity through several miles of wire, finding no loss of time between the touch at one end and the spark at the other; and how, in a recent experiment at Paris, a great length of wire had been carried in circles around the walls of a large apartment, an electro-magnet connected with one end, and an electric current manifested at the other, having passed through the wire so quickly as to seem instantaneous. Mr. Morse's taste for science had not died out during his years of devotion to art. He istened with the most earnest attention to the

doctor's narrative, and while he did so a large and promising idea came into being in his brain.

"Why," he exclaimed, with much ardor of manner, "if that is so, and the presence of electricity can be made visible in any desired part of the circuit, I see no reason why intelligence should not be transmitted instantaneously by electricity."

"How convenient it would be if we could send news in that manner!" chimed in one of the passengers. Why can't we?" exclaimed Morse.

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Why not, indeed? The idea probably died in the minds of most of the persons present within five minutes. But Samuel Morse was not one of the men who let ideas die. This one haunted him day and night. He thought of it and dreamed of it. In those days of deliberate travel time hung heavily on the hands of transatlantic passengers, despite the partial diversions of eating and sleeping. The ocean grew monotonous, the vessel monotonous, the passengers monotonous, everything monotonous except that idea, and that grew and spread till its fibres filled every nook and cranny of the inventive brain that had taken it in to bed and board.

Morse had abundance of the native Yankee faculty of invention. To do, had been plain enough from the start. How to do, was the question to be solved. But before the Sully steamed into New York harbor the solution had been reached. In the mind of the inventor, and in graphic words and drawings on paper, were laid down the leading features of that telegraphic method which is used to-day in the great majority of the telegraph lines of the world.

An alphabet of dots and marks, a revolving ribbon of paper to receive this alphabet, a method of enclosing the wires in tubes which were to be buried underground, were the leading features of the device as first thought of. The last conception was quickly followed by that of supporting the wires in the air, but Morse clung to his original fancy for burying them, a fancy which, it may here be said, is coming again into vogue in these latter days, so far as cities are concerned.

It is not meant to be implied that the idea of sending news by electricity was original with Morse. Others had had it before him. More than half a century before, Dr. Franklin and some friends had stretched a wire across the Schuylkill River and killed a turkey on the other side by electricity. As they ate this turkey, it is quite possible that they imbibed with it the idea of making this marvellous agent do other work than killing fowl for dinner, and from that time on it is likely that many had speculated on the possibility of sending intelligence by wire. Some experiments had been made, and with a certain degree of success, but time still waited for the hour and the man, and the hour and the man met in that fertile October day in the cabin of the Sully.

"If it can go ten miles without stopping, I can make it go round the world," said Morse to his fellow-passengers, his imagination expanding in the

ardor of his new idea.

"Well, captain," he said, with a laugh, on leaving the ship, "should you hear of the telegraph one of these days as the wonder of the world, remembe

that the discovery was made on board the good ship Sully."

The inventor, indeed, was possessed with his new conceptions, mad with an idea, as we may say, and glad to set foot once more on shore, that he might put his plans in practice.

This proved no easy task. He was none too well provided with funds, and the need of making a living was the first necessity that presented itself to him. He experimented as much as he was able, but three years passed before his efforts yielded a satisfactory result. Then, with a circuit of seventeen hundred feet of wire, and a wooden clock, adapted by himself to suit his purpose, he managed to send a message from end to end of this wire. It was not very legible. He could make some sense of it. His friends could not. But all were much interested in the experiment. Many persons witnessed these results, as shown in a large room of the New York University, in 1837. They seemed wonderful; much was said about them; but nobody seemed to believe that the apparatus was more than a curious and unprofitable toy, and capitalists buttoned their pockets when the question of backing up this wild inventor's fancy with money was broached.

But by this time Mr. Morse was a complete captive to his idea. Body and soul he was its slave. The question of daily fare became secondary; that of driving his idea over and through all obstacles became primary. His business as an artist was neglected. He fell into want, into almost abject poverty. For twenty-four hours he went without food.