DISCOURSE OF W. B. TAYLOR: NOTES. 387 



and signed in December, 1853, and in January of 1855, under 

 the ill-advised promptings of interested supporters, caused to be 

 published in a pamphlet of 96 pages, an elaborate and artfully 

 contrived attack upon Henry's character as a scientific explorer, and 

 as a trustworthy man ; undertaking the hazardous task of exposing 

 "the utter non-reliability of Henry's testimony." In this assault — 

 so unfortunate for his own reputation, (if not for candor, at least 

 for intelligence,) he announced: 



" 1st. I certainly shall show that I have not only manifested every 

 disposition to give due credit to Professor Henry, but under the 

 hasty impression that he deserved credit for discoveries in science 

 bearing upon the telegraph, I did actually give him a degree of 

 credit not only beyond what he had received at that time from the 

 scientific world, but a degree of credit to which subsequent research 

 has proved him not to be entitled. 2d. I shall show that I am not 

 indebted to him for any discovery in science l)earing on the tele- 

 graph, and that all discoveries of principles having this bearing 

 were made not by Professor Henry, but by others and prior to any 

 experiments of Professor Henry in the science of electro-magnetism. 

 3d. I shall further show that the claim set up for Professor Henry 

 to the invention of an important part of my telegraph system, has 

 no validity in fact." * 



Neglecting entirely the first allegation, — as a sufficient answer to 

 the second, Henry simply appealed to the unimpeachable testimony 

 of Dr. Gale, who certainly had a much more precise knowledge of 

 Professor JMorse's early experiments and apparatus than the inventor 

 himself. And in reply to the third allegation, driven in self-defence 

 to the unusual step of self-assertion, Henry ]>resented to the Regents 

 for their adjudication, the evidences of his discoveries and of their 

 respective dates of application and promulgation, f 



Professor Gale, who still preserved a faithful friendship for his 

 former colleague, yet in the interests of truth did not hesitate to 

 renew his former testimony to the vital bearing of Henry's researches 



* A Defence against the injurious deductiotis drawn fro7n the Deposition of Professor 

 Henry. New York, 1855, p. 8. 



t A select committee appointed by the Board of Regents to investigate the 

 imputations made by this remarkable assault — against the truthfulness of their 

 Secretary, after a careful examination of all the evidences presented or accessible, 

 submitted tlirough its cliairman. President Felton of Harvard University, a very 

 able and exhaustive report, in which the tenor of the pamphlet is characterized 

 as "a disingenuous piece of sophistical argument," and the conclusion is 

 announced, "that Mr. Morse has failed to substantiate any one of the cliarges he 

 has made against Professor Henry, although tlie burden of proof lay upon him; 

 and that all the evidence — including the unbiased admissions of Mr. Morse liim- 

 self, is on the otlier side. Mr. Morse's charges not only remain unproved, but 

 they are positively disproved." {Smithsonian Report for 1857, pp. 88-98.) 



