SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE. 



241 



Vail, a recent graduate of the university. His father, Judge 

 Stephen Vail, and his brother George, were proprietors of large 

 machine works at Speedwell, N. J., where he had himself ac- 

 quired skill in brass-working before he went to the university. 

 He inquired further into the matter, and soon entered into a 

 partnership with Prof. Morse, receiving a one-fourth interest 

 in the patent to be secured, in return for providing means and 

 facilities for developing the invention. 



Prof. Morse now filed a caveat at the Patent Office, and, 

 together with young Vail and Prof. Gale, who was admitted 

 to the partnership, enthusiastically renewed his exertions. 

 Several valuable modifications of the invention are due to the 

 ingenuity of Mr. Vail. In February, 1838, he took an im- 

 proved instrument to Washington, and exhibited the telegraph 

 on a ten-mile circuit to President Van Buren and his cabinet, 

 members of Congress, foreign ministers, and men of science. 

 His petition to Congress for an appropriation of thirty thou- 

 sand dollars to defray the expense of a specimen line of fifty 

 miles was not acted upon when Congress adjourned in March. 

 The Hon. F. O. J. Smith, of Maine, was now admitted to the 

 partnership. He and Prof. Morse drew the specifications for 

 the American patent and then both sailed for Europe to pro- 

 cure patents there. 



In England Morse met with the opposition of Prof. Wheat- 

 stone and Mr. Cooke, who had recently patented a telegraph 

 requiring six wires and making signals by deflecting five mag- 

 netic needles, but producing no record on paper. His applica- 

 tion was rejected by the attorney general on the ground that 

 an account of it had been published in England, although this 

 account gave none of the essential details. He was further 

 told by that official that " America was a large country, and he 

 ought to be satisfied with a patent there " ! Proceeding to 

 Paris, he was cordially received by Humboldt, Arago, Gay-Lus- 

 sac, and other distinguished savants, and readily procured a 

 French patent. 



Prof. Morse had met M. Daguerre in Paris, and each had 

 shown the other his invention. As an artist Morse became 

 much interested in the daguerreotype process, and, after it was 

 made public in the summer of 1839, obtained from the in- 

 ventor instructions which enabled him to introduce it in 

 America. Morse and John W. Draper soon applied the pro- 



