PROCEEDINGS OF THE REGENTS. 91 



scientific man. In a letter, dated April 24, 1839, he thanks Prof. 

 Henry for a copy of his " valuable contributions," and says, " I per- 

 ceive many things (in the contributions) of great interest to me in my 

 telegraphic enterprise." Again, in the same letter, speaking of an 

 intended visit to the Professor at Princeton, he says : "I should come 

 as a learner, and could bring no ' contributions' to your stock of ex- 

 periments of any value." And still further : " I think that you have 

 pursued an original course of experiments, and discovered facts more 

 immediately bearing upon my invention than any that have been 

 published abroad." 



It appears, from Mr. l^Iorse's own statement, that he had at least 

 two interviews with Prof. Henry — one in May, 1839, when he passed 

 the afternoon and night with him, at Princeton ; and another in Feb- 

 ruary, 1844 — both of them for the purpose of conferring with him on 

 subjects relating to the telegraph, and evidently with the conviction, 

 on Mr. Morse's part, that Prof. Henry's investigations were of great 

 importance to the success of the telegraph. 



As late as 1846, after Mr. Morse had learned that some dissatisfac- 

 tion existed in Prof. Henry's mind in regard to the manner in which 

 his researches in electricity had been passed over by Mr. Vail, an 

 assistant of Mr. Morse, and the author of a history of the American 

 magnetic telegraph, Mr. Morse, in an interview with Prof. Henry, at 

 Washington, said, according to his own account, " Well, Prof. Henry, 

 I will take the earliest opportunity that is afforded me in anything I 

 may publish to have justice don^ to your labors ; for I do not think 

 that justice has been done you, either in Europe or this country." 



Again^ in 1848, when Prof. Walker, of the Coast Survey, made 

 his report on the theory of Morse's electro-magnetic telegraph, in 

 which the expression occurred, "the helix of a soft iron magnet, 

 prepared after the manner first pointed out by Prof. Henry," Mr. 

 Morse, to whom the report way submitted, said: "I have now the 

 long wished for opportunity to do justice publicly to Henry's dis- 

 covery bearing on the telegraph." And in a note prepared by him, 

 and intended to be printed with Prof. Walker's report, he says : 

 " The allusion you make to the helix of a soft iron magnet, prepared 

 after the manner first pointed out by Prof. Henry, gives me an o])- 

 portunity, of which I gladly avail myself, to say that I think that 

 justice has not yet been done to Prof. Henry, either in Europe or in 

 this country, for the discovery of a scientific fact, which, in its bear- 

 ing on telegraphs, whether of the magnetic needle or electro-magnet 

 order, is of the greatest importance." 



