EDITOR'S TABLE. 



115 



imperfectly executed, and we propose 

 to contribute what we can to it in the 

 present publication. 



The Popular Science Monthly will 

 make its appeal, not to the illiterate, 

 but to the generally-educated classes. 

 The universities, colleges, academies, and 

 high-schools of this country are num- 

 bered by hundreds, and their graduates 

 by hundreds of thousands. Their cul- 

 ture is generally literary, with but a 

 small portion of elementary science ; but 

 they are active-minded, and competent 

 to follow connected thought in untech- 

 nical English, even if it be sometimes a 

 little close. Our pages will be adapted 

 to the wants of these, and will enable 

 them to carry on the work of self-in- 

 struction in science. 



The present undertaking is experi- 

 mental. We propose to give it a fair 

 trial; but it will be for the public to 

 decide whether the publication shall be 

 continued. All who are in sympathy 

 with its aims are invited to do what 

 thev can to extend its circulation. 



THE WORK OF PROF. MORSE. 



Prof. Morse has completed his ca- 

 reer, and taken his place in the past. 

 He belongs now to memory and to 

 fame, and his name and work will help 

 to save our age from oblivion in the 

 distant future. After a few thousand 

 years, when the inferior races of men 

 shall have disappeared from the earth, 

 except perhaps a few samples preserved 

 as antiquarian specimens ; when civiliza- 

 tion has overspread the world, and the 

 telegraph system has become so univer- 

 sal and perfected that any individual 

 will be able to put himself into instan- 

 taneous communication with any other 

 individual upon the globe, then will 

 the name of Morse, one of the great 

 founders of the system, be more eminent 

 than any upon whom we now look back 

 &a the illustrious of ancient times. 



Prof. Morse illustrated the law of 

 the hereditary descent of talent, being 



the son of the Eev. Jedediah Morse, the 

 first American geographer. He was 

 born in Massachusetts, in 1791, and 

 graduated at Yale College in 1810. 

 The American inventor of the tele- 

 graph, like the inventor of the steam- 

 boat, was at first an artist, and distin- 

 guished himself both in painting and 

 sculpture. He studied abroad, and re- 

 ceived the gold medal from the Adelphi 

 Society of Arts for his first attempt in 

 sculpture. Returning to this country, 

 he was engaged, by the corporation of 

 New York City, to paint the portrait 

 of Lafayette; he assisted in founding 

 the National Academy of Design, was 

 its first president, and gave the first 

 course of lectures ever delivered on art 

 in this country. 



In college, young Morse had paid 

 some attention to chemistry and physics, 

 but did not afterward specially pursue 

 them. He took up the subject of elec- 

 tricity much as Franklin did, through 

 the influence of others, and with refer- 

 ence to utilitarian ends. The invention 

 of the Leyden jar, in 1746, set all Eu- 

 rope to experimenting, and the next year 

 Peter Collinson, of London, sent a box 

 of glass tubes, and other things for ex- 

 perimenting, to his friend Franklin, at 

 Philadelphia, who took the electric fe- 

 ver and went enthusiastically to work, 

 giving the world the lightning-rod in 

 five years after he began to investigate. 

 So, while Morse was lecturing on the 

 fine arts, his friend Prof. G. F. Dana 

 was lecturing in the same institution 

 on electro-magnetism, and his attention 

 was thus drawn to the subject. Tim 

 was in 1826-27, when much was said 

 of the many and brilliant discoveries in 

 these sciences. 



The conception of the telegraph in 

 Prof. Morse's mind dates from 1832, 

 when he was forty-one years old ex- 

 actly the age of Franklin when he re- 

 ceived his instruments from Collinson, 

 and entered upon the study of electri- 

 city. It was in a conversation on elec- 

 tro-magnetism on board the packet-ship 



