144 MEMORIAL OF JOSEPH HENRY. 



protecting commerce and saving human life; giving to all the 

 arduous duties of these positions his thorough personal supervision. 

 In conjunction with Professor GUYOT, through the agency of the 

 Smithsonian Institution, he first inaugurated the systematic obser- 

 vation and study of the law of storms that has given us our present 

 signal-service observations. 



But the greatest triumph of his genius and reward of his patient 

 labor was the discovery of the telegraph. In 1825 Mr. BARLOW, 

 of the Royal Military Academy, published a pamphlet which was 

 accepted as the demonstration that the telegraph was impossible. 

 In 1830 Professor HENRY had a telegraph in successful operation 

 of over a mile and a half in length; and a little later, in Prince- 

 ton, one of several miles in length. A writer, (Mr. E. N. DICK- 

 ERSON,) who, as counsel in a patent case, had occasion to examine 

 this matter thoroughly, says: "The thing was perfect as it came 

 from its author, and .has never been improved from that day to this 

 as a sounding telegraph/' And he further calls attention to the 

 fact that the subsequent invention of an alphabet impressed on 

 paper strips has been abandoned, and, to-day, men read the tele- 

 graph phonetically, as Professor HENRY did at the first. 



How can we estimate the influence on the world's history, on 

 the progress of nations, on the individual lives of men, of the man 

 who gave to the world, without money and without price, the dis- 

 covery that made the telegraph possible? 



As over the land and under the sea, the voiceless viewless mes- 

 sage goes, freighted with its burden of joy or woe, of life or death, 

 of war or peace, it speaks his praise. 



This wonderful discovery, beginning a century ago, is the fruit 

 of the combined efforts of great men. OERSTED, ARAGO, AMPERE, 

 DAVY, BARLOW, STURGEON, FARADAY each contributed his 

 share of discovery to the result; but it was reserved for HENRY 

 to apply the discoveries already made, and to add the missing factor 

 that solved the problem and created the electro-magnetic telegraph. 



In the later years of his life his arduous and varied duties as 

 head of the Smithsonian Institution hindered in great measure his 

 prosecution of original research. This position he accepted as a 

 sacred trust from its founder, whose simple declaration, that it was 



