ADDRESS OF HON. J. A. GARFIELD. 93 



We have heard from his venerable associates with what resolute 

 perseverance he trained his mind and marshaled his powers for the 

 higher realms of science. He was the first American, after FRANK- 

 LIN, who made a series of successful original experiments in elec- 

 tricity and magnetism. He entered the mighty line of VOLTA, 

 GALVANI, OERSTED, DAVY, and AMPERE, the great exploring 

 philosophers of the world, and added to their work a final great 

 discovery which made the electro-magnetic telegraph possible.* 



* As a fuller statement of the steps by which the telegraph was achieved I append 

 a passage from an address which I delivered at the MOHSE memorial meeting, in the 

 Hall of the House of Representatives, April 16, 1872: 



"The electro-magnetic telegraph is the embodiment, I might say the incarnation, 

 of many centuries of thought, of many generations of effort to elicit from nature 

 one of her deepest mysteries. No one man, no one century could have achieved it. 

 It is the child of the human race, ' the heir of all the ages.' How wonderful were 

 the steps which led to its creation ! The very name of this telegraphic instrument 

 bears record of its history 'electric, magnetic.' The first, named from the bit of 

 yellow amber whose qualities of attraction and repulsion were discovered by a 

 Grecian philosopher twenty-four centuries ago; and the second, from Magnesia, the 

 village of Asia Minor, where first was found the loadstone, whose touch turned the 

 needle forever to the North. These were the earliest forms in which that subtle, all- 

 pervading force revealed itself to men. In the childhood of the race men stood dumb 

 in the presence of its more terrible manifestations. When it gleamed in the purple 

 aurora, or shot dusky-red from the clouds, it was the eye-flash of an angry God, be- 

 fore whom mortals quailed in helpless fear. When the electric light burned blue on 

 the spear-points of the Roman legions it was to them and their leaders a portent 

 from the gods beckoning them to victory. When the phosphorescent light, which 

 the sailors still call Saint Elmore's fire, hovered in the masts and spars of the Roman 

 ship, it was Castor and Pollux, twin gods of the sea, guiding the mariner to port, or 

 the beacon of an avenging God luring him to death. 



"When we consider the startling forms in which this element presents itself, it is 

 not surprising that so many centuries elapsed before men dared to confront and 

 question its awful mystery. And it was fitting that here, in this new, free world, 

 the first answer came revealing to our FRANKLIN the great truth that the lightning 

 of the sky and the electricity of the laboratory were one ; that in the simple electric 

 toy were embodied all the mysteries of the thunderbolt. Until near the beginning 

 of the present century the only known method of producing electricity was by fric- 

 tion. But the discoveries of GALVANI in 1790, and of VOLTA in 1810, resulted in the 

 production of electricity by the chemical action of acids upon metals, and gave to 

 the world the galvanic battery and the voltaic pile, and the electric current. This 

 was the first step in that path of modern discovery which led to the telegraph. But 

 further discoveries were necessary to make the telegraph possible. The next great 

 step was taken by OERSTED, the Swedish professor, who, in 1819-'20, made the discovery 

 that the needle when placed near the galvanic battery was deflected at right angles 

 with the electric current. In the four modest pages in which OERSTED announced 

 this discovery to the world the science of electro-magnetism was found. As FRANK- 

 LIN had exhibited the relation between lightning and the electric fluid, so OERSTED 

 exhibited the relation between magnetism and electricity. From 1820 to 1825 his 

 discovery was further developed by DAVY and STURGEON, of England, and ARAGO 

 and AMPERE, of France. They found that by sending a current of electricity through 



