90 nature's flMracles, 



minds, which led to the triumph of scientific 

 truth over religious fanaticism. 



The writer in Scott's Magazine did not have 

 the opportunity to put his ideas into practice, 

 so the glory of the invention fell to others. 

 Such men as this unknown writer are made of 

 finer stuff, and they stand alone on the fron- 

 tier of progress. They do not fear the bullets 

 of an enemy half so much as the gibes of a 

 friend. Much of their work is done quietly 

 and without notice, and when something of 

 real importance is worked out theoretically 

 and experimentally, some one seizes upon it 

 and proclaims it from the housetops and at- 

 taches to it his name; but perhaps years sit'icr 

 the real inventor (the man who taught the so- 

 called inventor how to do it) is dead, some one 

 writes a book that reveals the truth, and then 

 the hero-loving people erect a monument to 

 his memory. 



Such a man was our own Professor Joseph 

 Henry, so long the presiding genius at the 

 Smithsonian Institution at Washington. He 

 worked out all the problems of the present 

 American telegraphic system and demon- 

 strated it practically. Everything that made 

 the so-called Morse telegraph a success had 

 long before been described and demonstrated 

 by Henry. Yet with the modest grace that 

 was ingrained in the man he yielded all to the 

 one who was instrumental in constructing the 



