306 HENRY AND THE TELEGRAPH. 



city of au ordinary battery can be made efficient ; bnt your committee 

 think tliat no serious difficulty is anticipated as to this point. The ex- 

 periment with the wire wound in a coil may not indeed be deemed con- 

 clusive. ... It maj' be proper to state that the idea of using elec- 

 tricity for telegrajihic purposes has presented itself to several individu- 

 als, and that it may be difficult to settle among them the question of orig- 

 inality. The celebrated Gauss has a telegraph of this kind in actual 

 operation, for communicating signals between the University of Got- 

 tingen and his magnetic observatory in its vicinity. ... In con- 

 clusion, the committee beg leave to state their high gratification with 

 the exhibition of Professor Morse's telegraph, and their hope that means 

 may be given to him to subject it to the test of an actual experiment 

 made between stations at a considerable distance from each other." * 



About the middle of February, (1838,) Professor Morse arrived in Wash- 

 ington with his instrument and his reels of wire, and exhibited the ope- 

 ration of the telegrai^h to many dignitaries of the executive and legisla 

 tive branches of government. A memorial was presented to Congress 

 by the inventor, asking an appropriation to defray the expense of an 

 experimental line between two cities ; which being referred to the Com- 

 mittee on Commerce by the House of Representatives, was favorably 

 reported by that committee April G, through its chairman, Hon. Francis 

 O. J. Smith. " The committee agree unanimously that it is worthy to 

 engross the attention and means of the Federal Government to the full 

 extent that may be necessary to put the invention to the most decisive 

 test that can be desirable;" and in accordance with this opinion, "the 

 committee recommend an appropiiation of thirty thousand dollars, to be 

 expended under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury; and to 

 this end submit herewith a bill." This bill however failed to receive 

 the support of the majority, and a favorable action on this measure was 

 not obtained for several years. 



Meanwhile Professor Morse had been engaged with a killful attorney 

 in preparing papers with a view to obtaining a patent. The specifica- 

 tion (signed April 7, 1838) includes, in addition to the several parts de- 

 scribed in the earlier caveat of October 3, 1837, the recently-devised 

 system of alphabetic signs, a rotary j)ort-rule for continuous action 

 and a combination of circuits or electro magnetic " relays." The inven- 

 tion is described as " an application of electro-magnetism in producing 

 sounds and signs, or either, and also for recording permanently by the 

 same means . . . any signs thus produced." " It consists of the fol- 

 lowing parts : First, a circuit of electric or galvanic conductors," etc. 

 " Second, a system of signs by which numerals and words represented by 

 numerals, and thereby sentences of words, as well as of numerals, and let- 

 ters of any extent and combination of each, are communicated." " Third, 

 a set of type adapted to regulate the communication of tlie above-men- 

 tioned signs." " Fourth, an apparatus called the port-rule [straight or 

 * Journal of Franklin Institute, February, 18;]8, vol. xxi, u. s. pp. 106-108. 



