92 PROCEEDINGS OF THE REGENTS. 



He then proceeds to give a historical synopsis^ showing that, 

 although suggestions had been made and plans devised by Soemmering, 

 in 1811, and by Ampere, in 1820, yet that the experiments of Barlow, 

 in 1824, had led that investigator to pronounce " the idea of an elec- 

 tric telegraph to be chimerical" — an opinion that was, for the time, 

 acquiesced in by scientific men. He shows that, in the interval be- 

 tween 1824 and 1829, no further suggestions were made on the sub- 

 ject of electric telegraphs. But he proceeds — '' In 1830, Prof. Henry, 

 assisted by Dr. Ten Eyck, while engaged in experiments on the ap- 

 plication of the principle of the galvanic multiplier to the development 

 of great magnetic power in soft iron, made the important discovery 

 that a battery of intensity overcame that resistance in a long wire 

 which Barlow had announced as an insuperable bar to the construc- 

 tion of electric telegraphs. Thus was opened the way for fresh efforts 

 in devising a practicable electric telegraph ; and Baron Schilling, in 

 1832, and Professors Gauss and Weber, in 1833, had ample oppor- 

 tunity to learn of Henry's discovery, and avail themselves of it, before 

 they constructed their needle telegraphs." And, while claiming for 

 himself that he was'" the first to propose the use of the electro-magnet 

 for telegraphic purposes, and the first to construct a telegraph on the 

 basis of the electro-magnet," yet he adds, " ^o Professor Henry is 

 unquestionably due the honor of the discovery of a principle which proves 

 the practicability of exciting magnetism through a long coil, or at a dis- 

 tance, either to deflect a needle or to magnetize soft iron." 



What Mr. Morse here describes as "a principle," the discovery of 



which is unquestionably due to Professor Henry, is the law which 



first made it possible to work the telegraphic machine invented by 



Mr. Morse, and for the knowledge of which Mr. Morse was indebted to 



Professor Henry, as is positively asserted by his associate, Dr. GtALE. 



This gentleman, in a letter, dated Washington, April 7, 1856, makes 

 the following conclusive statement : 



Washington, D. C, April 7, 1856. 

 Sir : In reply to your note of the 3d instant, respecting the Morse 

 telegraph, asking me to state definitely the condition of the invention 

 when I first saw the apparatus in the winter of 1836, I answer: This 

 apparatus was Morse's original instrument, usually known as the type 

 a})paratus, in which the types, set up in a composing stick, were run 

 through a circuit breaker, and in which the battery was the cylinder 

 battery, with a single pair of plates. This arrangement also had another 

 peculiarity, namely, it was the electro-magnet used by Moll, and shown 

 in drawings of the older works on that subject, having only a few 

 turns of wire in the coil which surrounded the poles or arms of the 

 magnet. The sparseness of the wires in the magnet coils and the use 



