HENRY AND THE TELEGRAPH. 347 



mouy of Mr. Henry, while supporting the chiinis of Mr. Morse as the inventor of an 

 admirable invention, denied to him the additional merit of being a discoverer of new 

 facts or laws of natiu-e, and to this extent perhaps was considered unfavorable to 

 some part of the claim of Mr. Morse to an exclusive right to employ the electro-magnet 

 for telegraphic x>urposes. Professor Henry's deposition consists of a series of answers 

 to verbal, as well as written, interrogatories propounded to him, which were not 

 limited to his published writings, or the subject of electricity, but extended to investi- 

 gations and discoveries in general having a bearing ui)0u the electric telegraph. He 

 gave his testimony at a distance from his notes and manuscrijits, and it would not 

 have been surxirising if inaccuracies had occurred in some parts of his statement; but 

 all the material points in it are sustained by independent testimony, and that portion 

 which relates directly to Mr. Morse agrees entirely with the statement of his own 

 assistant. Dr. Gale. Had his dexiosition been objectionable, it ought to have been im- 

 peached before the court ; but this was not attempted ; and the following tribute to 

 Professor Henry by th<e judge, in delivering the opinion of the Supreme Court of the 

 United States, indicates the impression made upon the court itself by all the testimony 

 in the case: ' It is due to him to say that no one has contributed more to enlarge the 

 knowledge of electro-magnetism, and to lay the formdations of the great inventions 

 of which we are speaking, than the Professor himself.'" 



The committee, m summing up the various testimonies, justly declare of Professor 

 Henry, that ''he has freely communicated information to those who have sought it 

 from him, among whom has been Mr. Morse himself, as ajipears by his own acknowl- 

 edgments. But he has never applied his scientific discoveries to practical ends for his 

 own pecuniary benefit. It was natural therefore that he should feel a repugnance to 

 taking any ^lart in the litigation between rival inventors, and it was inevitable that 

 when forced to give his testimony, he should distinctly point out what was so clear in 

 his own mind and is so fundamental a fact in the history of human progress, the dis- 

 tinctive functions of the discoverer, and the inventor who ai^iilies discoveries to jirac- 

 tical purposes in the business of life. 



" Mr. Henry has always done full justice to the invention of Mr. Morse. "\^Tiile he 

 could not sanction the claim of Mr. Morse to the exclusive use of the electro-magnet, he 

 has given him full credit for the mechanical contrivances adapted to the aj)plication 

 of his invention. . . ; 



" Your committee come unhesitatingly to the conclusion that Mr. Morse has failed to 

 Bubstantiate any one of the charges he has inade against Professor Henry, although 

 the burden of proof lay ui)on him; and that all the evidence, including the unbiased 

 admissions of Mr. Morse himself, is on the other side. Mr. Morse's charges not only 

 remain unproved, but they are j)ositively disproved. 



"Your committee recommend the adoi^tion of the following resolutions: 



" Eesolved, That Professor Morse has not succeeded in refuting the statements of 

 Professor Henry in the deposition given by the latter in 1849, that ho has not proved 

 any one of the accusations against Professor Henry, and that he has not disproved any 

 one of his own admissions in regard to Professor Henry's discoveries in electro- 

 magnetism, and their importance to his own invention of the electro-magnetic tele- 

 graph. 



'^ Resolved, That there is nothing in Professor Morse's article that diminishes in the 

 least, the confidence of this Board in the integrity of Professor Henry, or in the value 

 of those great discoveries which have iilaced his name among those of the most dis- 

 tinguished cultivators of science, and have done so much to exalt the scientific repu- 

 tation of the country. 



" Eesolved, That this report, with the resolutions, be recorded in the Proceedings of 

 the Board of Regents of the Institution." 



The report was accepted, and the resolutions were unanimously adopted by the 

 Board of Regents.* 



* Smithsotiian Report for 1857, pp. 88-98. 



