626 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



claimed that" up to the year eighteen hundred and forty-fiTe( 1845) 

 he preferred to use prot-oxide of nitrogen," or laughing gas. 

 Mr Wells had thus, by his own statement of his case, precluded 

 the idea that he could have made the discovery of etherization. 

 Prot-oxide of nitrogen had not and would not produce aneesthesia. 



Mr. Hildreth, in his concluding remarks, said, he was willing 

 to concede credit to Mr. Morse for great commercial euteri^rise, 

 in bringing out the electro-magnetic telegraph j but not its disco- 

 very, or that of any of its parts. 



Mr. Roosevelt considered that there would be no resistance to 

 the electric wave, (insulated in gutta percha as it is) by pressure 

 of the superincumbent ocean. That he considered the transmis- 

 sion through the wires as if in a solid timber of any imaginable 

 length, if one end of it be moved at all the other end must instan- 

 taneously move as much in the same direction. 



Mr. S. D. Tillman observed, that after much attention to this 

 subject, he greatly feared the approaching experiment would fail. 

 The difficulties attending the paying out of a line of such immense 

 length ; the danger of abrasion on the frequent out-croppings of 

 rock from the bed of the ocean, particularly those on the coast of 

 Ireland; the obstacles to the j^erfect working of batteries at such 

 a great distance from each other without " relays" through a deli- 

 cate medium liable to derangement, and w^hich by a single defect, 

 would be rendered useless, all furnish considerations which forced 

 him to the conclusion that the proposed connexion of the conti- 

 nents w^ould not be permanent. We must not, however, infer 

 from this failure that the desired end is unattainable. 



In this as well as in many other great national undertakings, 

 the path of success lies in an opposite direction. The grand 

 thought-way of the world is destined to span our own continent 

 and unite the West with the East at Behring's Straits. A line of 

 electric telegraph to the Pacific, is of great importance in itself, 

 for by it we are to hold hourly communication with Utali, Cali- 

 fornia and Oregon, and in effect to bring China herself twenty 

 days nearer to us. While responsible parties in our own country, 

 now stand ready to build at their own cost, this line to the Pacific, 

 he could not doubt the entire feasibility of running it northward 

 to the Russian possessions, with the aia of our Government. To 



