94 PROCEEDINGS OF THE EEGENTS. 



Patents, I would simply state that the part I owned when I entered 

 the service of the government in this office was orginally given me hy 

 the said Morse for services rendered him in making his invention 

 practically effective in sending currents through long distances, &c., 

 and that the said interest was retransferred to the said Morse for the 

 sum of fifteen thousand dollars. 

 Kespectfully, 



L. D. GALE. 

 Professor Henry, 



Secretary Smithsonian Institution. 



It thus appears, both from Mr. Morse's own admission down to 

 1848^ and from the testimony of others most familiar with the facts, 

 that Professor Henry discovered the la,w, or " principle," as Mr. Morse 

 designates it, which was necessary to make the practical working of 

 the electro-magnetic telegraph at considerable distances possible; that 

 Mr. Morse was first informed of this discovery by Dr. Gale ; that he 

 availed himself of it at once, and that it never occurred to Mr. Morse 

 to deny this fact until after 1848. He had steadily and fully acknow- 

 ledged the merits and genius of Mr. Henry, as the discoverer of facts 

 and laws in science of the highest importance to the success of his 

 long-cherished invention of a magnetic telegraph, Mr. Henry was 

 the discoverer of a principle, Mr. Morse was the inventor of a machine, 

 the object of which was to record characters at a distance, to convey 

 intelligence, in other words, to carry into execution the idea of an 

 electric telegraph. But there were obstacles in tlie way which he 

 could not overcome until he learned the discoveries of Professor Henry, 

 and applied them to his machine. These facts are undeniable. They 

 constitute a part of the history of science and invention. They were 

 true in 1848, they were equally true in 1855, when Professor Morse's 

 article was published. We give a passage here from the deposition 

 of Sears C. Walker, in the case of French vs. Ptogers, Kespondent's 

 Evidence, page 199, bearing upon this whole subject : 



"In consequence of some statements made by me in my official 

 reports relative to the invention of the receiving magnet, a question 

 arose between Mr. Morse and myself as to the origin of this invention. 

 It was amicably discussed by Mr. Morse, Professor Henry, Dr. Gale, 

 and myself, with Professor Henry's article, alluded to in answer to 

 the second question before us. The result of the interview was con- 

 clusive to my mind that Professor Henry was the sole discoverer of 

 the law on which the intensity magnet depends for its power of send- 

 ing the galvanic current through a long circuit. I was also led to 

 conclude that Mr. Morse, in the course of his own researches and ex- 

 periments before he had read Professor Henry's article, before alluded 

 to, had encountered the same difficulty Mr. Barlow and those who 

 preceded him had encountered, that is, the impossibility of forcing 



