300 HENRY AND THE TELEGRAPH. 



the upper side and a tooth projecting downward at one end operated on 

 by the type, and a metallic fork, also projecting downward over two mer- 

 cury cups, and a short circuit of wire embracing the helices of the elec- 

 tro-magnet, connected with the positive and negative poles of the bat- 

 tery, and terminating in the mercury cups. . . . Early in 1S3G, I 

 procured foj'ty feet of wire, and, initting it in the circuit, I found that my 

 battery of one cup was not sufficient to work my instrument.* . . . 

 A practical mode of communicating the impulse of one circuit to an- 

 other, such as that described in my patent of 1840, was matured as 

 early as the spring of 1837, and exhibited then to Professor Gale, 

 my coniidential friend. Up to the autumn of 1837 my telegraphic 

 apparatus existed in so rude a form that I felt reluctance to have it 

 seen."t 



In substantial accord with Professor Morse's deposition is that of his 

 colleague and assistant. Professor Gale, taken in a previous case, and 

 dated April 1, 1818, in which it is added that " On Saturday, the 2nd 

 day of September. 1837, Professor Daubeny, of the English Oxford Uni- 

 versity, being on a visit to this country, was invited with a few friends 

 to see the operation of the telegraph in its then rude form in the cabinet 

 of the New York City University, where it then had been put up with a 

 circuit of 1,700 feet of copper wire stretched back and forth in that long- 

 room. This exhibition of the telegraph, although of very rude and im- 

 perfectly constructed machinery, demonstrated to all present the prac- 

 ticability of the invention ; and it resulted in enlisting the means, the 

 skill, and the zeal of Mr. Alfred Yail."| 



The record made on the trial exhibited September 2d, appears not to 

 have been entirely satisfactory, for on the following Monday (September 

 4th) a still better i)erformance was effected, as announced by a letter of 

 that date addressed by Professor Morse to the editor of the New York 

 " Journal of Commerce," in which the writer says : " I have the gratifica- 

 tion of sending you a specimen of the writing of my telegraph, the actual 

 transmission of a communication made this morning, in a more complete 

 manner than on Saturday, and through the distance of one-third of a 

 mile.-' This specimen of telegraphic communication, with its accompa- 

 nying letter, was re-produced in the "Journal of Commerce" three days 



* [Had Professor Morse tried 50 or 100 cups, lie would have found them equallj' iu- 

 eufficient: a fact liere quite ignored.] 



\Dcposifion of Samuel F. B. Morse: Feb. 6, 7, and 8, 1851. In the case of "B. B. 

 French and others vs. H. J. Rog<!rs and otliers." Circuit court of U. S. for E. Dist. of 

 Pa. April session 1850. No. 104. "Complainant's Evidence." Ninth answer, jjp. 

 1()7-1G'J. 



\ Modern Telefircipliy : a pamphlet by Professor Morse. Paris, 18()7, Appendix, p. 19. 

 Tliis tirst cxperiniental exhibition, it umst be remembered, was nearly three months 

 after the date of Cooke and Wheatstone's i)atent, more than a month after theu- suc- 

 cessful operation thi-ough a mile and a <iuarter, and while the f]nglish inventors were 

 engaged in constructing a working line from Paddington to West Dayton. Mr. A. 

 Vail, a young man of line abilities, was a pupil of Dr. Gale's, and was by him intro- 

 duced to Professor ISlorse. 



