298 HENRY AND THE TELEGRAPH. 



with the two poles of the cup battery. A series of types haviug on their 

 upper face teeth or cogs varying in number, were set up as desired in 

 the groove of a rule or comi^osing-stick, which was caused to pass under 

 the free end of the circuit lever ; and in this way the oscillation of the 

 said lever over the projecting teeth determined the intervals of trans- 

 mission of the magnetizing current according to the combinations pre- 

 viously arranged in the composing-stick. The movement of the stri^:) of 

 paper beneath the pencil of the pendulum produced a continuous 

 straight line so long as the j)endulum remained at rest ; but at each 

 momentary attraction of its armature by the magnet, (induced by the 

 completion of the galvanic circuit on the passage of a tooth under the 

 circuit lever,) the play of the pendulum caused a lateral deviation of its 

 pencil, which thus produced a transverse V-shaped interruijtion of the 

 straight line. 



With this arrangement of apparatus the projector was enabled to 

 produce signals through short circuits of wire : but he soon discovered 

 to his dismay that on interposing more than a few yards of insulated 

 wire, the oracle was dumb. Although the remedy for this defect (first 

 discovered and demonstrated by Ilenry) had been for four or five years 

 familiar to the students of science, the reading of the artist had not 

 been in the direction of scientific literature ; and he had conducted his 

 experiments with a surprising indifference and inattention to the exist- 

 ing state of knowledge upon the subject. In this emergency he wisely 

 procured the scientific assistance of a colleague. Dr. Leonard D. Gale, 

 professor of chemistry in the same university, and the material and 

 mechanical assistance of Mr. Alfred Vail, of the Speedwell Iron Works 

 near Morristown, N. J. 



The following is the account given by Dr. Gale of the early condition 

 of this experimental telegraph, and of his own connection therewith : 

 " In the winter of 1830-'37, Samuel F. B. Morse, who as well as myself 

 was a professor in the New York University, city of New York, came 

 to my lecture-room, and said he had a machine in his lecture-room or 

 studio which he wished to show me. I accompanied him to his room, 

 and there saw resting on a table a single-pair galvanic battery, an elec- 

 tro-magnet, an arrangement of pencil, a paper-covered roller, pinion- 

 wheels, levers, &c., for making letters and figures to be used for send- 

 ing and receiving words and sentences through long distances. . . . 

 At this time as Morse assured me no man had seen the machine except 

 his brotlier, Sidney E. Morse. . . . Morse's machine was com- 

 l^lete in all its parts, and operated perfectly through a circuit of some 

 forty feet, but there was not sufficient force to send messages to a dis- 

 tance. At this time I was a lecturer on chemistry, and from necessity 

 was acquainted with all kinds of galvanic batteries ; and knew that a 

 battery of one or a few cups generates a large quantity of electricity, 

 capable of producing heat, &c., but not of projecting electricity to a 

 great distance ', and that to accomx^lish this a battery of many cups is 



