LITERARY NOTICES. 



541 



The Telegraph in America : Its Founders, 

 Promoters and Noted Men. By James 

 D. Reid. New York : Derby Brothers. 

 1879. Pp. 850. Price, cloth, $G. 



When in June, ISYl, a strong repre- 

 sentation of the telegraph interest in Amer- 

 ica was assembled in New York City to 

 attend the ceremony of unveiling the statue 

 of Professor S. F. B. Morse, in the Central 

 Park, an earnest desire was expressed by 

 many to have the occasion and the man 

 appropriately commemorated in a volume. 

 The task of composing this memorial vol- 

 ume was imposed upon Mr. Reid, and the 

 completed work is now published : but in- 

 stead of its being simply a monument to 

 the memory of Professor Morse, the work 

 has been expanded to the proportions of a 

 history of telegraphy in America. 



In accordance with the original inten- 

 tion of the author, the volume contains a 

 pretty full biography of Professor Morse, 

 with an account of the progress of electri- 

 cal science down to the year 1832, when he 

 first conceived his idea of a recording elec- 

 trical telegraph. Mr. Reid was an intimate 

 friend of Morse, and reverently cherishes 

 his memory ; but in writing this account of 

 his friend's researches and inventions, he 

 exhibits no desire to slur the merits or to 

 belittle the labors of other workers in the 

 same field. The story of Morse's invention 

 of the recording telegraph is told without 

 rhetorical embellishment, but with the ef- 

 fectiveness of simple narrative. It was in 

 the early part of October, 1832, and Morse 

 was crossing the Atlantic on his way home 

 from Europe, whither he had gone some 

 three years before, to study the works of 

 the great painters, for he was an artist be- 

 fore he turned his attention to telegraphy. 

 One of his fellow travelers was Dr. Charles 

 T. Jackson, of Boston, then profoundly 

 interested in electro-magnetism, to which 

 his attention had been directed by certain 

 lectures which he had heard in Paris. In 

 conversation with Morse he described in 

 particular Ampere's brilliant experiments 

 with the electro-magnet. 



" The subject," writes Mr, Reid, " at 

 once excited very general interest, into 

 which Mr. Morse entered with awakened 

 enthusiasm. Hitherto he had felt no other 

 interest in electrical matters than that of 

 a lively and excited curiosity. His early 



studies now enabled him to enter into the 

 conversation with intelligent earnestness. 

 Dr. Jackson had in his trunk, in the hold of 

 the vessel, an electro-magnet, which he de- 

 scribed, and during the conversation alluded 

 to the length of wire in the coils. This led 

 one of the company to inquire 'if the 

 velocity of the electricity was retarded by 

 the length of the wire.' A very pregnant 

 thought lay in that inquiry, and the conver- 

 sation became earnest and practical. Dr. 

 Jackson replied that electricity passed in- 

 stantaneously over any known length of 

 wire. At this point Mr. Morse remarked, 

 ' If the presence of electricity can be made 

 visible in any part of the circuit, I see no 

 reason why intelligence may not be trans- 

 mitted instantaneously by electricity.' " 



The author has had access to the artist's 

 sketch-book, in which Morse at the time 

 jotted down his alphabet scheme, and drew 

 designs of various pieces of apparatus. 

 These are reproduced in Mr. Reid's volume, 

 and thus the reader is enabled to sec Morse's 

 system of telegraphy in its germ, so to 

 speak. The author follows his own account 

 of the " Birth of the Recording Telegraph," 

 with the history of the invention composed 

 by Morse himself in 1868, on the occasion 

 of the International Exposition at Paris. 



This " Morse Memorial " occupies the 

 first one hundred pages of Mr. Reid's vol- 

 ume ; the remainder is devoted to the " His- 

 tory of the Telegraph in America." The 

 plan of this second part is an unfortunate 

 one, comprising sketches of the rise and 

 development of the dilTerent telegraph 

 companies, with notices of their founders 

 and promoters. This arrangement neces- 

 sarily makes the work a congeries of mu- 

 tually independent memoirs, each one val- 

 uable indeed in itself, but the effect of the 

 whole must be to w^eary and confuse the 

 reader's mind. Nevertheless, the work is 

 one possessing permanent value, not as a 

 "History," but rather as a collection of 

 memoires pour servir — of authentic ma- 

 terials which the philosophical historian 

 will later digest and coordinate. It is safe 

 to say that no future historian of the tele- 

 graph can afford to overlook the work done 

 by Mr. Reid. 



The book, in its mechanical execution, 

 leaves nothing to be desired. It contains 

 portraits, some in steel plate, others in 



