'27"i AMERICAN ELECTRIC-TF.I.EGnAPH. 



our land, which has not contained notices of it more or less extended. 

 We doubt not but that some oi' our readers may have wished to see a 

 more detailed account of the principles of its construction and the mode 

 of its operation. This we shall, at the solicitation of a friend, endeavor 

 to do, after a few preliminary observations. How we shall succeed, we 

 will leave others to judge. 



Since the Spring of 1844, when an experimental line of forty miles, 

 between Washington city and Baltimore, was made, the telegraph has 

 been extended along the sea-board from the former place as far as to 

 Boston, and from New York city, through Albany to Buffalo, on Lake 

 Erie. Other shorter branches have been extended in various directions 

 into the country, and yet others are in contemplation ; so that probably, 

 in less than a year, our whole country will be threaded over by it, and 

 intelligence communicated almost instantaneously to points the most re- 

 mote, as well as to those which are intermediate. Upvvards of one thou- 

 sand miles, if we are not mistaken, are already completed. 



The Electric-Telegraph of Prof. Morse, both on account of the sim- 

 plicity of its construction, and the gigantic scale upon which it may be 

 made to operate, must be regarded as one of the greatest triumphs of 

 inventive genius. And as its inventor is one of our countrymen, we 

 take no little pride in designating it the " Great American Electric-Tele- 

 graph." Other forms of the electric-telegraph there are, differing from 

 this, principally in the mode of applying Magnetism, the power employed, 

 and of recording or evidencing the information to be communicated. The 

 principal of these are those of Whealstone of England, and Bain of 

 France. But so great is the superiority over all others of that of Professor 

 Morse, who has also the honor of being an original inventor, not an 

 imitator or an improver, that his instrument has been adopted, not only 

 in the United States, but also in Germany and France, and it is not 

 doubled but that before long England will so far forego her partiality to 

 the less perfect invention of lier son, as to adopt tlie more perfect one of 

 her grandson. A comparison of the operation of the three telegraphs 

 shows that the American gives "sixty signs or characters, the English 

 fifteen, and the French at most fourteen per minute; with the advanta- 

 ges in favor of the first, that the characters are made permanent, and the 

 operation of the instrument surer; the simplicity of the machinery ren- 

 dering it less liable to be deranged by atmospheric changes or other in- 

 cidents. " 



As the operative principal in this telegraph is Magnetism as produced 

 bv a transmitted cunent of eliciricily, and tlie construction and opera- 

 tion of the instrument are based upon an easy and simple application of 



