JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS. 145 



mering, in 1811, and by Ampere, in 1820, yet that the experiments 

 of Barlow, in 1824, had led that investigator to pronounce " the idea 

 of an electric telegraph to be chimerical " — an opinion that was, for 

 the time, acquiesced in by scientific men. He shows that, in the 

 interval between 1824 and 1829, no further suggestions were made 

 on the subject of electric telegraphs. But he proceeds — " In 1830, 

 Professor Henry, assisted by Dr. Ten Eyck, while engaged in experi- 

 ments on the application of the principle of the galvanic multiplier 

 to the development of great magnetic power in soft iron, made the 

 important discovery that a battery of intensity overcame that resist- 

 ance in a long wire which Barlow had announced as an insuperable 

 bar to the construction of electric telegraphs. Thus was opened the 

 way for fresh efforts in devising a practicable electric telegraph ; and 

 Baron Schilling, in 18-32, and Professors Gauss and Weber, in 1833, 

 had ample opportunity to learn of Henry's discovery, and avail them- 

 selves of it, before they constructed their needle telegraphs." And, 

 while claiming for himself that he was " the first to propose the use 

 of the electro-magnet for telegraphic purposes, and the first to con- 

 struct a telegraph on the basis of the electro-magnet," yet he adds, 

 " to Professor Henri/ is unquestionably due the honor of the discovery of 

 a principle which proves the practicability of exciting magnetism through a 

 long coil, or at a distance, either to deflect a needle or to magnetize soft iron." 

 What Mr. Morse here describes as " a principle," the discovery of 

 which is unquestionably due to Professor Henry, is the law which 

 first made it possible to work the telegraphic machine invented by 

 Mr. Morse, and for the knowledge of which Mr. Morse was indebted 

 to Professor Henry, as is positively asserted by his associate, Dr. 

 Gale. This gentleman, in a letter, dated Washington, April 7, 1856, 

 makes the following conclusive statement : 



Washington, D. C, April 7, 1856. 

 Sir : In reply to your note of the 3d instant, respecting the Morse telegraph, ask- 

 ing me to state definitely the condition of the invention when I first saw the appa- 

 ratus in the winter of 1836, I answer : This apparatus was Morse's original instru- 

 ment, usually known as the type apparatus, in which the types, set up in a composing 

 stick, were run through a circuit breaker, and in which the battery was the cylinder 

 battery, with a single pair of plates. This arrangement also had another peculiarity, 

 namely, it was the electro-magnet used by Moll, and shown in drawings of the older 

 works on that subject, having only a few turns of wire in the coil which surrounded 

 the poles or arms of the magnet. The sparseness of the wires in the magnet coils 

 and the use of the single cup battery were to me, on the first look at Lhe instrument, 

 obvious marks of defect, and I accordingly suggested to the Professor, without giving 

 my reasons for so doing, that a battery of many pairs should be substituted for that 

 of a single pair, and that the coil on each arm of the magnet should be increased to 

 many hundred turns each ; which experiment, if I remember aright, was made on 

 the same day with a battery and wire on hand, furnished, I believe, by myself, and it 

 was found that while the original arrangement would only send the electric current 

 through a few feet of wire, say 15 to 40, the modified arrangement would send it 

 through as many hundred. Although I gave no reasons atthe time to Professor 



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