HENRY AND THE TELEGRAPH. 321 



junction witli Cooke) lie devised a "quantity" circuit supplementary to 

 his "intensity" circuit for the sole purpose of calling "attention." 



Professor Morse in his answer to the tirelfih cross-interrogatory (in his 

 deposition taken February G, 7, and 8, 1851), in the case of " B. B. French 

 and others vs. H. J. llogers and others," has made the following state- 

 ment: "If by the question is sought the date of my invention of break- 

 ing and closing one circuit by another, I answer in 1836 [ ? ]. I exhibited 

 the same in operation [?] in the spring of 1837. If by the question is 

 sought the date of my invention of a short circuit to be used at the ex- 

 tremities of the line, I answer in May of 1844. If by the question is 

 sought the date of a still greater improvement, to wit, that of placing 

 short circuits on the margin (so to speak) of the main line, all of them to 

 be operated simultaneously, I answer that the idea of such an improve- 

 ment first 1^ resented itself to my mind in the beginning of the year 

 1844.* . . . The short circuits at the extremity of the main line were 

 first used on the line between Washington and Baltimore, in May, 1844." t 



These deliberate statements of Professor Morse distinguish very explic- 

 itly between the "relay" of magnets for "breaking and closing one cir- 

 cuit by another," and the "receiving" magnet of "a short circuit at the 

 extremities of the line." And as a fact of public record, Morse patented 

 the first of these devices June 20, 1840; (No. 1047;) while he did not pat- 

 ent the latter device (the " receiving " magnet of a local circuit) till about 

 six years later, April 11, 184C : (No. 4453.) 



On the same subject, Professor Gale has stated in his dei)osition : 

 " The said Morse always expressed his confidence of success in propa- 

 gating magnetic power through any distance of electric conductors which 

 circumstances might render desirable. His plan was thus often ex- 

 plained to me. Sup])ose (said Professor Morse) that in experimenting 

 on twenty miles of wire we should find that the i)ower of magnetism is 

 so feeble that it will but move a lever with certainty but a hair's breadth; 

 that would be insufficient it may be to write or print, yet it would be 

 sufficient to close and break another or a second circuit twenty miles 

 farther ; and this second circuit could in the same manner be made to 

 break and close a third circuit twenty miles farther; and so on around 

 the gl<jbe." 



This is a very clear presentation of the " relay " of circuits. But with 

 a slight confusion of idea Dr. Gale proceeds : " ThivS general statement 

 of the means to be resorted to, now embraced in wliat is called tbc ^re- 

 ceiving magnet,^ to render practical — writing or printing by telegraph 

 through long distances, was shown to me more in detail early in the 

 spring of the year 1837." To the same effect, nearly a quarter of a 



"[Steinbeil, in 1837 (seven years earlier), had adapted liis refjjistcrin"^ galvanometer 

 " to repeat and render permanent at all imrtu of the chain where an a])parat ns like that 

 above described is inserted," the infonnation transinitt(!d to the termiuns. (Sturgeon's 

 Annals of Electricity, etc. April, 1839, vol. iii, p. 520.)] 



\ Depodtion of Samuel F. B. Morse, Circuit Court oftho United States for the eastern 

 district of Pennsylvania, April session, 1850, No. 104, "Complainant's Evidence," pp. 

 182, 183. 



S. Mis. 59 21 



