32 



only to the general fact that it was now demonstrated that a galvanic 

 current could be transmitted to great distances with sufficient power to 

 produce mechanical effects adequate to the desired object. 



The investigations above mentioned were all devised and originated, 

 and the experiments planned, by myself. In conducting the latter, 

 however, I was assisted by Dr. Philip Ten Eyck, of Albany. An account 

 of the whole was published in the 19th volume of SiUiraan's Journal, in 

 1831, with the exception of the account of the large magnet afterwards 

 constructed at Princeton in 1833, and the experiment mentioned of 

 lifting a thousand pounds with one of my first magnets. While I was 

 engaged in these researches. Professor Moll, of the University of Utrecht, 

 was pursuing investigations somewhat similar, and succeeded in making 

 powerful electro-magnets, but made no discovery as to the distinction 

 between the two kinds of magnets, or the transmissibility of the galvanic 

 current to a great distance with power to produce mechanical effects. In 

 fact, his experiments were but a repetition on a large scale of those of 

 Sturgeon. 



After completing the investigations abovementioned, I commenced a 

 series of experiments on another branch of electricity closely connected, 

 with this subject. Among other things, I applied the principles above- 

 mentioned to the construction of an electro-magnetic machine, which has 

 since excited much attention in reference to the application of electro- 

 magnetism as a motive power in the arts. 



In 1832 I was called to the chair of natural philosophy in the College 

 of New Jersey, at Princeton, and in my first course of lectures in that 

 institution, in 1833, and in every subsequent year during my connection 

 with that institution, I mentioned the project of the electro-magnetic 

 telegraph, and explained how the electro-magnet might be used to produce 

 mechanical effects at a distance adequate to making signals of various 

 kinds. I never myself attempted to reduce these principles to practice 

 or to apply any of my discoveries to processes in the arts. My whole 

 attention, exclusive of my duties to the college, was devoted to original 

 scientific investigations, and I left to others what I considered in a scien- 

 tific view of subordinate importance, the application of my discoveries to 

 useful purposes in the arts. Besides this, I partook of the feeling 

 common to men of science, which disinclines them to secure to themselves 

 the advantages of their discoveries by a patent. 



In February, 1837, I went to Europe ; and early in April of that year 

 Professor Wheatstone, of London, in the course of a visit to him in King's 

 College, London, with Professor Bache, now of the Coast Survey, 

 explained to us his plans of an electro-magnetic telegraph ; and, among 

 other things, exhibited to us his method of bringing into action a second 



