1 16 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Sully that the idea of instantaneous com- 

 munication of intelligence by means of 

 an insulated wire occurred to him, 

 " and, before the completion of the voy- 

 age, he had not only worked out in his 

 own mind, but had committed to paper, 

 the general plan of the invention with 

 which his name is indissolubly connect- 

 ed. His main object was to effect a 

 communication, by means of the elec- 

 tro-magnet, that would leave a perma- 

 nent record by signs answering for an 

 alphabet, and which, though carried 

 to any distance, would communicate 

 with any place through which the line 

 might pass. His first idea was to use 

 a strip of paper, saturated with some 

 chemical preparation that would be 

 decomposed when brought in connec- 

 tion with the wire, along which the 

 electric current was passing, and thus 

 by a series of chemical marks, varying 

 in width and number for the different 

 letters of the alphabet, record the mes- 

 sage without separating the wire at 

 each point of communication." 



Three years were now consumed in 

 experimenting, and in 1835 he had so 

 far perfected his instrument as to be 

 able to show it to his friends, and send 

 by it a message to the distance of half 

 a mile ; but, at this time, he could not 

 receive an answer through the same 

 wire. Two years later, his plan was so 

 matured that he could telegraph to a 

 distance, and receive replies ; and he 

 then exhibited it to hundreds of people 

 in the University of New York, where 

 Boon after the first photograph of a 

 human countenance was taken by Dr. 

 J. "W. Draper. 



It is interesting to note the equality 

 of the rhythms of mental movement in 

 the development of electrical science. 

 If we start with Du Fay, the greatest 

 electrician of the last century, and who 

 first introduced the conception of the 

 two kinds of electricity, vitreous and 

 resinous afterward positive and nega- 

 tive we may assume that he first laid 

 its secure foundation as a science, and 



his researches were published in the 

 proceedings of the French Academy in 

 1737. The next fifteen years was the 

 most productive period in the develop- 

 ment of Motional electricity, and ended 

 with the invention of the lightning-rod 

 in 1752. In 1790, a new form of elec- 

 tricity was discovered by Galvani, and 

 then came a period of seventeen years 

 in which the phenomena were rapidly 

 developed, ending with Davy's grand 

 experiments in electrical decomposition 

 with the galvanic battery in 1807. In 

 1820, Oersted announced electro-mag- 

 netism, and then followed a brilliant 

 course of discoveries again, for seventeen 

 years, terminating in the patenting of 

 the electro-magnetic telegraph by Morse 

 in 1837 exactly a century from the 

 publication of the memoirs of Du Fay. 



It is not to be forgotten, however, 

 that the time had come for the electric 

 telegraph, and other men were working 

 at the problem as well as Morse. He 

 sailed for Europe in 1838, to get assist- 

 ance in carrying out his project, and 

 to obtain patents in foreign countries. 

 In this he failed, because of rival con- 

 trivances already in the field. Cooke 

 and Wheatstone in England, and Stein- 

 heil in Munich, had been at work for 

 several years on the same problem. 

 The latter had patented an electric tele- 

 graph in 1836, and the former in 1837. 



Of Prof. Morse's difficulties in carry- 

 ing out his great and beneficent inven- 

 tion, the lack of sympathy and apprecia- 

 tion on the part of the public, the faith- 

 lessness of capitalists, and the stupidity 

 of the American Congress, little need 

 be said, as it is but the old story over 

 again. Yet he triumphed over all these 

 obstacles, and lived to a ripe old age, to 

 enjoy in munificent measure the rewards 

 and the applause of his generation. 



THE SCIENCE OF SOCIETY. 



The first article of our first number 

 is the first instalment of a series of 

 essays on the study of society in a 

 methodical way, or sociology. But few 



