L o jv n o jv 



Figure 26. — Bain's electrochemical telegraph 

 as used with punched paper tape. From 

 L. Turnbull, The Electro-Magnetic Telegraph, 

 Philadelphia, 1853, p. 38. 



Figure 25. — Wheatstone's ABC telegraph, an 

 instrument made in 1876 and based upon the 

 patent of i860. From E. Feyerabend, Der 

 Telegraph von Gauss und Weber, Berlin, 1933, 

 P- 79- 



that of making the register work not only in the labora- 

 tory but over a distance. When Morse showed his 

 instrument to his colleague, Leonard Gale, professor 

 of chemistry at New York University in January 1836, 

 it would not work through 40 feet of wire. 



In a letter dated March 10, 1837, Levi Woodbury, 

 Secretary of the Treasury, requested that proposals 

 for a telegraph be submitted to the U.S. Government. 

 Secretary Woodbury was of course thinking of the 

 semaphore telegraph. When Morse heard of this 

 letter, it stimulated him to do more intensive work 

 on his own invention for fear of losing the Federal 

 priority to others. 



Sometime during the same spring, Morse confided 

 to Gale that if he could work his telegraph through 

 10 miles of wire, he could work it around the world. 

 For Morse had conceived that a relay (fig. 31) could 



Figure 27. — American form of Bain's electro- 

 chemical receiver. From G. B. Prescott, 

 History, Theory, and Practice of the Electric 

 Telegraph, Boston, i860, p. 129. 



296 



BULLETIN 228: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 



