86 PROCEEDINGS OF THE EEGENTS. 



to your consideration, and I now (1857) embrace the first opportunity 

 of bringing the subject officially to your notice, and asking from you 

 an investigation into the justice of the charges alleged against me. 

 And this I do most earnestly, with the desire that when we shall all 

 have passed from this stage of being, no imputation of having at- 

 tempted to evadein silence so grave a charge shall rest on me, nor on you, 

 of having continued to devolve upon me duties of the highest respon- 

 sibility, after that was known to some of you individually, which, if 

 true, should render me entirely unworthy of your confidence. Duty 

 to the Board of Regents, as well as regard to my own memory, to my 

 family, and to the truth of history, demands that I should lay thi^ 

 matter before you, and place in your hands the documents necessary 

 to establish the veracity of my testimony, so falsely impeached, and 

 the integrity of my motives, so wantonly assailed. 



My life, as is known to you, has been principally devoted to science, 

 and my investigations in different branches of physics have given me 

 some reputation in the line of original discovery. I have sought, 

 however, no patent for inventions, and solicited no remuneration for 

 my labors, but have freely given their results to the world, expecting 

 only, in return, to enjoy the consciousness of having added^ by my in- 

 yCstigations, to the sum of human knowledge^ and to receive the 

 credit to which they might justly entitle me. 



I commenced my scientific career about the year 1828, with a series 

 of experiments in electricity, which were continued at intervals up to 

 the period of my being honored by election to the office of Secretary 

 of this Institution. The object of my researches was the advancement 

 of science, without any special or immediate reference to its applica- 

 tion to the wants of life or useful purposes in the arts. It is true, nev- 

 ertheless, that some of my earlier investigations had an important 

 bearing on the electro-magnetic telegraph, and brought the science to 

 that point of development at which it was immediately applicable to 

 Mr. Morse's particular invention. 



In 1831 I published a brief account of these researches, in which I 

 drew attention to the fact of their applicability to the telegraph ; and 

 in 1832, and subsequently, exhibited experiments illustrative of the 

 application of the electro-magnet to the transmission of power to a 

 distance, for producing telegraphic and other effects. The results I 

 had published were communicated to Mr. Morse, by his scientific 

 assistant. Dr. Gale, as will be shown on the evidence of the latter ; 

 and the facts which I had discovered were promptly applied in render- 

 ing effective the operation of his machine. 



