382 MEMORIAL OF JOSEPH HENRY. 



tooth projecting downward at one end operated on by the type, and 

 a metallic fork also projecting downward over two mercury-cups 

 and a short circuit of wire embracing the helices of the electro- 

 magnet, connected with the positive and negative poles of the bat- 

 tery and terminating in the mercury-cups. - - - Early in 1836, 

 I procured forty feet of wire, and putting it in the circuit I found 

 that my battery of one cup was not sufficient to work my instru- 

 ment." * 



The last statement exhibits a singular unconsciousness of the real 

 defect of his receiving apparatus, and of the fact that no number 

 of galvanic cups would have sufficed "to work the instrument" as 

 then constructed. It is true (as first shown by Henry) that an 

 "intensity" battery of many elements is required to operate a mag- 

 netic telegraph line; but (as also shown by him) a no less essential 

 constituent, is an " intensity" magnet, if any use is to be made of 

 the armature. And on this point Professor Morse seems never to 

 have understood the vital importance of Henry's discoveries to the 

 success of his own invention. Had he employed the most powerful 

 of then existing magnets, (Henry's Yale College magnet of 1831, 

 lifting 2,300 pounds, or Henry's Princeton College magnet of 1834, 

 lifting 3,500 pounds,) he would still have found neither one cup nor 

 one thousand cups "sufficient to work the instrument" through a 

 circuit of fine wire, at the distance of a single mile.f Although 

 Professor Morse was enabled therefore to operate the armature of 

 his Sturgeon magnet through a few yards of wire, it is certain that 

 his experiments in 1836 were, for any telegraphic purpose, an abso- 

 lute failure: a failure as complete as were those undertaken by 

 Barlow in 1825. The relevancy of his incidental remark as in 

 extenuation "one cup was not sufficient to work my instrument," 

 may therefore be appreciated. 



As an artist of repute, Mr. Morse had been appointed professor 

 of the "Arts of Design," in the newly established New York City 

 University, in the autumn of 1835; but with any literature of sci- 

 ence, he was remarkably unfamiliar. He therefore very naturally 

 had recourse to his colleague Professor Leonard D. Gale (of the 

 chair of chemistry) for needed scientific assistance. The following 

 is Dr. Gale's account of Morse's original invention : 



"In the winter of 1836-'37, Samuel F. B. Morse, who as well 

 as myself was a professor in the New York University, city of 



* Professor Morse's deposition in the "Bain case," 1850. 



t " Electro-magnets of the greatest power, even when the most energetic bat- 

 teries are employed, utterly cease to act when they are connected by considerable 

 lengths of wire with the battery." (J. F. Daniell's Introduction to the Study of 

 Chemical Philosophy. 2nd ed. 8vo. London, 1843, chap. xvi. sect. 859, p. 576.) 



