SCIENCE IN THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD 



remarkable in the fact that he should consider himself 

 entitled to some participation in the credit arising 

 from the invention of a telegraph in America. Two 

 men came together. A seed-word, sown, perhaps, by 

 some purposeless remark, took root in fertile soil. The 

 one, profiting by that which he had seen and read of, 

 made suggestions and gave explanations of phenomena 

 and constructions only imperfectly understood by him- 

 self, and entirely new to the other. The theme in- 

 terested both, and became a subject of daily conversa- 

 tion. Then they parted, and the one forgot or was in- 

 different to the matter, whilst the other, more in earnest, 

 followed it up with diligence, toiling and scheming ways 

 and means to realize what had only been a dream com- 

 mon to both. His labors brought him to the adoption of 

 a method not discussed between them, and Morse be 

 came the acknowledged inventor of a great system. 



"Fame and fortune smiling upon the inventor, it was 

 natural enough that Jackson, awakening from his un- 

 fortunate indolence, should remember his share in their 

 earlier interchange of ideas, that had, perhaps, first 

 directed Morse's attention to the subject of telegraphy. 

 And, although we are compelled to pronounce dishonest 

 those attempts which Jackson made to claim the later 

 and proper invention of Morse that of the electro- 

 magnetic recorder and strong as is our confidence 

 in the spotless integrity of our friend, we cannot entirely 

 ignore Jackson little as he has done nor deny him an 

 inferior place amongst those men whose names are 

 associated with the history and progress of the electric 

 telegraph in America " l 



