HISTORY OF ELECTRICITY IN AMERICA 117 



they are ranked, both at home and abroad, with the most 

 original and valuable of his day and generation. 



In taking up for brief review the story of the modern tele- 

 graph, we leave behind us, for a time, the purely scientific 

 phase of electrical advancement. Samuel F. B. Morse, as is 

 well known, conceived the idea of an electromagnetic tele- 

 graph in the year 1832, on board the packet, Sully, as he was 

 returning from Havre to his native land. He made a sketch 

 in his notebook at the time, illustrating devices which he 

 thought might serve for recording signals at a distance ^ The 

 central organ of the telegraph, as Morse conceived it, was the 

 Sturgeon electromagnet, which he had seen exhibited by Pro- 

 fessor Dana, at Yale college, in 1827. He knew that the soft 

 iron core would attract magnetic material while an electric 

 current was passing through the coil, and would release it 

 v.hen the current ceased. Why could not this power be 

 utilized to cause a to-and-fro motion of an armature which 

 should make a record on a strip of paper fed forward by 

 machinery? Morse did not purpose making a scientific investi- 

 gation to discover a new property of the electric "virtue," 

 but to apply already known laws and principles to the end of 

 conveying intelligence quickly over long distances. The 

 electric telegraph, so-called, was an invention, and not a dis- 

 cover}"; the result of an exercise of inventive genius, not of 

 the passion for research. The distinction is important, be- 

 cause it will help us presently to understand the part which 

 Morse played in the actual development of his conception. 

 No comparison is here instituted to the disparagement of 

 Morse or any one else between the relative value or dignity 

 of invention and purely scientific achievement. The intro- 

 duction of movable types for printing did not increase the 

 world's stock of scientific knowledge, but it marks an epoch, 

 nevertheless. The point is that the idea of a great and revo- 

 lutionizing invention had its birth in the mind of a man sin- 

 gularly deficient in inventive ability and mechanical skill. 

 The career of Morse has frequently been cited as an instance 

 of what a man can do late in life without previous special 

 training. The true story of the telegraph enforces once more 

 the wholesome lesson that genius works no miracles. The 



