356 HENRY AND THE TELEGRAPH. 



NOTE K. (From p. 322.) 



THE DATE OP PROFESSOR MORSE'S ''RELAY." 



Although the depositions of Professor Morse, and of his principal assistant (given in 

 law suits more than ten years after the event), assign from memory as the date of inven- 

 tion of the "relay" the spring of 1837, all the document.ary evidence existing, points 

 rather to the spring of 1838, as the date of its inception. First, we should expect at 

 least a reference to this device in the article prepared.for Silliman's Journal of Spetemher, 

 1837, in announcing the intention of experimenting with "a circuit of several miles." 

 Secondly, we should certainly expect to find it spoken of as a saving expedient in 

 the caveat of October 3, 1837, if it were at that time in the author's mind, and ho were 

 desirous of protecting it. Thirdly, we should expect to find it unavoidably brought 

 forAvard (at least as a suggestion) before the committee of the Franklin Institute, 

 February 8, 1838, when the doubt was expressly discussed in the committee's rejjort as 

 to the practicable distance to which the telegraph could be made to signal. This con- 

 spiracy of silence, this conspicuous absence (in every published case) of the slightest 

 hint upon the subject, although so directly promjited and invited, is difficult {ex j)ost 

 facto) to account for. The earliest documentary reference now extant, to a junction 

 of circuits, occurs in the application for a patent signed by Professor Morse April 7, 

 1838. 



On filing this application in the Patent Office, he had requested that it might be re- 

 tained in the secret archives, unacted upon, until he should have procured his foreign 

 patents. He left this country for Europe with that object May l(j, 1838, and returned 

 to New York April 15, 1839. For a year or more afterward he took no step toward 

 procuring his patent, till he wrote the following letter to the " Hon. H. L. Ellsworth, 



Commissioner of Patents " : 



"New York, May 2, 1840. 



"Dear Sir: I have never received my patent papers from your office. I believe 

 there was something to be done on my part in relation to a drawing for one of the 

 duplicates, which I was prevented from accomplishing by the necessity of preparing 

 suddenly for my visit to Europe with the telegraph. I have nearly completed an im- 

 proved apparatus for which I intend to take out a patent, adding it to my patent 

 already executed, as an improvement. . . . 



" Your old friend and classmate, 



"Samuel F. B. Morse." 



To this the Commissioner replied as follows : 



" Patent Office, May 14, 1840. 



" Sir : The sjiecifications and drawings of your alleged improvement in the mode of 

 communicating signals by the application of electro-magnetism are herewith re- 

 turned to you, the ex^ilanatory reference in the same not being sufficient to properly 

 illustrate the invention. Some annotations pointing out the iJarts where these are 

 wanting are marked in jieucil in the margin of the description. 



" Your favor of the 2d instant has been received ; in reply to which the office has to 

 state that the delay attending the granting of your application has not been caused 

 by any want of attention on its part. Some two years since, when your patent was 

 about being issued, a request was made by you that the case might be postponed until 

 you should have received letters patent from the European governments. This request 

 was complied with, and as no communication has been received from you since in re- 

 lation to the issuing of the patent, the case has been permitted to lie over. The pat- 

 ent will be issued however immediately on the return of the papers. 



" Yours respectfully, 



"H. L. Ellsworth." 



The amended specification and a duplicate set of drawings were returned to the 

 Patent Office by Professor Morse, with a letter dated New York, May 18, 1840. It was 

 then discovered that the original oath of invention required by law was defective in 



