248 PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



The Great Eastern started with another cable on Friday, July 13, 

 1866 (ominous day !), and on Friday two weeks later the Ameri- 

 can end was safely landed. From that day to this telegraphic 

 communication across the Atlantic has been uninterrupted. 



While the early attempts to lay an Atlantic cable were in 

 progress, Prof. Morse had, by the advice of friends holding high 

 official stations, issued a memorial asking for compensation 

 for the use of his telegraph in the various countries of Europe. 

 He had the best claim on France, for he had actually obtained 

 a patent in that country, but the Government, which had a 

 monopoly of transmitting intelligence, had declined to use his 

 invention for some years and had afterward adopted it without 

 compensation to him. Negotiations followed which resulted 

 in a sum equal to eighty thousand dollars being awarded to 

 him by a conference of representatives of ten European gov- 

 ernments Austria, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Pied- 

 mont, Russia, the Holy See, Sweden, Tuscany, and Turkey. 

 Morse's telegraph had now come into use to the exclusion of its 

 rivals everywhere except to a limited extent in Great Britain. 



In 1866 Prof. Morse took some of his younger children to 

 Europe for a course of study, remaining abroad two years. 

 During his stay he accepted a pressing invitation to serve as 

 one of the committee on telegraphic instruments at the Paris 

 Exposition. As on repeated former visits, he was everywhere 

 the recipient of distinguished honours. And marked honours 

 awaited- him from his fellow-citizens at home. Toward the 

 close of December, 1868, a splendid banquet, at which two 

 hundred gentlemen of mark in their respective walks in life 

 were present, was given him in New York. It was presided 

 over by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, who had been the leading 

 counsel against Prof. Morse in the first lawsuit brought for in- 

 fringement on the telegraph patent. No small part of the value 

 of Prof. Morse's invention was that it created a new means of 

 gaining .a livelihood, which has been an inestimable boon to 

 tens of thousands of men and women throughout the world. 

 In 1869 a movement was started by the operators in Allegheny, 

 City, Pa., to bestow a testimonial upon the inventor for this 

 service. A sum of money was raised, mostly in one-dollar sub- 

 scriptions, sufficient to erect a bronze statue of Prof. Morse, 

 which was placed in Central Park, New York. It was unveiled 

 on June 10, 1871, with inspiring and enthusiastic exercises. 



