DEVELOPMENT OF THE TELEGRAPH 



of earning a livelihood, was given its quietus by a 

 refusal of the government to allow him to paint one of 

 the great historical paintings for the rotunda of the 

 Capitol at Washington. From that moment he turned 

 his attention and his ambitions to the study of science, 

 using art only as a means of furthering this end. 



It was on board the ship Sully, returning from his 

 European trip, in 1832, that Morse first expressed the 

 idea that the electric telegraph was a practical possi- 

 bility. The discoveries of Faraday of the year before had 

 aroused a general interest in the subject of electricity 

 and particularly that of electrical communication by 

 telegraph. A fellow passenger of Morse's on board 

 the Sully was a certain Doctor Jackson, who was 

 much interested in the possibilities of electricity and 

 magnetism. During many conversations and discus- 

 sions with his fellow passengers on the trip, Morse ex- 

 pressed his belief that it would be possible to produce a 

 telegraph by which, through the simple process of 

 making and breaking a current along the wire, a code of 

 signals representing the alphabet could be devised 

 and turned to practical account. He not only expressed 

 this belief but made sketches of electrical apparatus il- 

 lustrating the principle upon which a telegraph might 

 be successfully constructed. 



On reaching New York he began a series of experi- 

 ments to carry out the ideas formed on shipboard. 

 For four years he continued these studies, struggling in 

 poverty and sometimes in actual want of food and 

 clothing. By 1835 he had constructed a fairly success- 

 ful telegraph, and had formulated a practical code for 



