34 



deflected in my laboratory before my class. I afterwards transmitted 

 ■currents in various directions through the college grounds at Princeton. 

 The exact date of these experiments I am unable to give without reference 

 to my notes. They were previous, however, to the unsuccessful attempt 

 of Mr. Morse to transmit currents of electricity through wires buried in 

 the earth between Washington and Baltimore, and before he attempted 

 to use the earth as a part of the circuit. Previous to this time, and after 

 the abovementioned experiments, Mr. Morse visited me at Princeton, to 

 consult me on the arrangement of his conductors. During this visit, we 

 conversed freely on the subject of insulation and conduction of wires. I 

 urged him to put his wires on poles, and stated to him my experiments 

 and their results. 



In the course of the years 1836 and 1837, various plans of more or 

 less merit were devised, and more or less fully carried into effect, for 

 applying the principles already discovered to the construction of electro- 

 magnetic telegraphs in different parts of the world, but of these I do not 

 undertake to give any particular account. I would say, however, that of 

 these plans that for which Mr. Morse subsequently obtained a patent was, 

 in my judgment, the best. 



3. Please state whether or not you are acquainted with the electro- 

 magnetic telegraph for which S. F. B. Morse obtained a patent in 1846. 

 If you are, please state whether any, and if any, which of the principles 

 or plans which you have described as discovered, or announced by your- 

 self or others are used in the construction or operation of it. State also 

 what principles used in the telegraph are, so far as you know, original 

 with Professor Morse. 



Answer. — I am acquainted with the principles and general mode of 

 operation of the telegraph and improvement referred to. The telegraph 

 is based upon the facts discovered by myself and others, of which I have 

 already given an account. 



The plan which was first described to me in the autumn of 1837 by Mr. 

 Morse, or by Professor Gale, who was associated with him in the con- 

 struction of the telegraph, was to employ a single entire circuit of wire, 

 with an intensity battery to excite the current, and an intensity magnet 

 to receive it and produce a mechanical action, which would work the 

 recording apparatus. Mr. Morse afterwards employed the intensity 

 battery in a long circuit, and an intensity magnet to receive its current 

 at a distant point, and produce the mechanical effect of closing a secondary 

 circuit. The secondary circuit may be either employed to transmit a 

 second current to a distant point and there close a third circuit, and thus 

 continue the line, or for working a recording apparatus in the secondary 



