HENRY AXD THE TELEGRAPH. 313 



Whether judged by the standard of original conception, of practical 

 operation, or of actual introduction into use, the Morse telegra])h must 

 be assigned a position tolerably low down in the list.* More than six- 

 teen years before Professor Morse's first conception of the idea, Dr. J. 

 R. Coxe, professor of chemistry in the University of Pennsylvania, at 

 the beginning of 1816, " conceived the idea " of a practical electro-chemi- 

 cal telegraph, whose signals should be permanently recorded by the de- 

 composition of metallic salts ;t the precursor of Dyar's electro-chemical 

 telegraph, successfully operated in 1828, (about five years before Morse's 

 first conc(?ption,) — of Bain's electro-chemical telegraph, (patented De- 

 cember 12, 1810,) — and of ]Morse's electro-chemical telegraph, (patented 

 May 1, 1849,) a third of a century afterward. Schilling's electro-mag- 

 netic telegraph developed to a "practical operation" in 1823, certainly 

 before 1825, preceded that of Morse more than a dozen years. And the 

 electro-magnetic telegraph of Gauss and Weber (certainly "conceived" 

 before 1832) was in actual use and em])loyment more than ten years 

 before the similar establishment by Professor Morse; while that of 

 Steinheil, probably conceived as early, was some eight years earlier 

 than his in its practical introduction into use.| 



That Professor Morse would greatly have expedited his own improve- 

 ments, and have saved himself a large amount of wasted time and labor, 

 if he had studied more carefully the state of the art at the commence- 

 ment of his experiments in 1835, is sufficiently obvious. But his com- 

 plete unconsciousness — not only of the earlier successes of others in de- 

 veloping the galvanic telegraph, but of even the elementary facts of sci- 

 entific history bearing on the problem, as well at the time of his original 

 "conception" on board the ship Sully from the fecundating suggestion 

 of Dr. Jackson, as during the years following, in which the invention 

 was being slowly matured, — would be incredible on any other testimony 

 than his own. In his first letter to the Secretary of the Treasury, dated 

 September 27, 1837, he announced "having invented an entirely new 

 mode of telegraphic communication." In a letter to Mr. A. Vail, some 

 time afterward, he wrote: "I ought perhaps to say that the conception 

 of the idea of an electric telegraph was original with me at that time, 

 and I supposed that I was the first that had ever associated the two 

 words together, nor was it until my invention was completed and had 

 been successfully operated through ten miles, that I for the first time 



* Nearly two years before Professor Morse had met with Dr. C. T. Jackson, Henry had 

 "conceived" and executed an experimental electro-magnetic telegraph, of a mile circuit. 



IThomson's Annals of Pliilosophi/, February, ISIG, vol, vii, ii. Ki:?. 



J: In a letter to his dau;;hter dated July "JG, 18:58, (written from Havre, .just on his 

 arrival in France from Loudon,) Professor Morse says soin(>wliat cuiiouyly of the tele- 

 grapli of Wheatstone, "he has invented his I believe without knowing that I was 

 engaged in an invention to produce a similar result ; for although he dates Itack to 

 IH'^2, yet as no publication of our tiiouglits was ma<le by eitliei', we are evidently in- 

 dependent of each otlier." (PriuKs's Life of Morse, chap. ix. p. '.\oS.) The iioi)ular in- 

 fatuation in England as to the originality and jtriority of the Cooke and Wheatstouo 

 telegraph is ])robably quite equal to that jjrevalent in America as to the superior 

 claims of the Morse telegraph. Wheatstone's scientific distinction or his tJtlo to en- 

 during fame, fortunately does not rex^ose on his telegraph. 



