science. Prof. Gale became his confidential friend and partner. In 1837, Prof. Daubney of the University of Oxford, being on a visit to the United States, and some friends, including the learned Henry A. Tappan who was one of the faculty of the university, and at a later date President of the University of Michigan, were invited to see experiments on the telegraph. Among the students who were privileged to see the experiments was a Mr. Alfred Vail, who recognizing to some extent the value of the telegraph, induced his father and brother to advance funds with which to make experiments of such a nature as would make it impossible for the public not to recognize the value of the invention. He also became a partner of Prof. Morse's-a partnership which he had in after years reason to value in the highest degree and to return ardent thanks to the professor for the blessing which he had been instrumental in conferring upon him.

In the meantime rumors having got abroad of the wonders which could be performed by telegraphy, Mr. Levi Woodbury, Secretary of the United States Treasury, issued a circular to naval officers and to men in certain departments of the civil service of the United States, and to others, to furnish him with reliable information respecting the services which the best telegraphic system which had as yet been devised in any part of the world might be made to render the Republic. To the circular which Prof. Morse received he replied in a long letter in which he unfolded the wonderful possibilities of the electric telegraph. Secretary Woodbury replied under date of Dec. 6th, 1837, that he was satisfied that the telegraph would be valuable to commerce as well as to the government. He added: "It might most properly be made appurtenant to the Post-Office Department; and during war, would prove a most essential aid to the military operations of the country."

Prof. Morse showed his invention to many scientists and was always attentive to any suggestions which they made. Thus, he may not only be said to have called to his aid whatever suggestions he might thus obtain, but to have also received the indorsement of so many men of science that a dignity surrounded his invention which necessarily commanded a consideration at the hands of the United States Government. For example, the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia-a learned Society which Franklin had helped to found-appointed a Committee to carefully examine the invention and to report to the Society its conclusions. One of them, Robert M. Patterson had been a correspondent of Jefferson's, to whom the aged statesman had contributed some highly philosophic thoughts pointing out improvements of vast importance to civilized nations which might be made in the system of weights and measures in general use in the transactions of commerce. Patterson was the Professor of Natural Philosophy, of Chemistry, and of Mathematics in the University of Pennsylvania-a university which, as has been said, owed its origin to Franklin. At a later period he was one of the professors of the University of Virginia. He was also President of the American Philosophic Society as well as a member of the Franklin Institute. Another member of the Committee was Roswell Park, a professor in Natural Philosophy of the University of Pennsylvania. Prof. Walker of the Philadelphia High School, Isaiah Lukens who was a very able mechanician, and two other scientists connected with the United States mint,—one of them being at a later period at the head of the Department of Weights and Measures of the United States, made a body of men whose conclusions might well command the attention of the most incredulous minds. This learned Committee reported to the Institute with high admiration that not only had electricity, by

Morse's invention, been reduced to subserviency to man's wishes, but that the invention was capable of being made of such value to the Republic, that the National Government should advance the means with which to test its possibilities on a large scale. When Prof. Morse informed by letter one of his brothers of the action of the Franklin Institute his accomplished brother wrote back to him, saying: "Your invention, measuring it by the power which it will give man to accomplish his plans, is not only the greatest invention of the age, but the greatest invention of any age. I see, as an almost immediate effect, that the surface of the earth will be net-worked with wire, and every wire will be a nerve, conveying to every part intelligence of what is doing in every other part. The earth will become a huge animal with ten million hands, and every hand a pen to record whatever the directing soul may dictate. No limit can be assigned to the value of the invention." Young Mr. Vail, Prof. Morse's former student who had become his partner, on hearing what the Franklin Institute had said about the telegraph though it was but in miniature form, wrote on March 19th, 1837, to him saying: "I feel, Professor Morse, that if I am ever worth anything, it will be wholly attributable to your kindness-I now should have no earthly prospect of happiness and domestic bliss had it not been for what you have done, which I shall ever remember with liveliest emotions of gratitude, whether it is eventually successful or not. I can appreciate your reasonable and appropriate remark that there is nothing certain in this life; that it is a world of care, anxiety, and trouble, and that our dependence must be placed upon a higher power than of earth.”*

The high confidence reposed in Prof. Morse by the Franklin Institute, and the letters from distinguished

*Ibid., p. 338.

scientiests, helped to open the way for the inventor to bring the electric telegraph to the attention of the Federal Government. When he visited the national Capitol, the Congressional Committee of Commerce, to whom Congress, acting on an official communication of the Secretary of War, had referred the consideration of the electric telegraph, treated him with much consideration, placing the private room of the Committee at the disposal of the inventor. The President of the United States and the members of his Cabinet visited Morse to see a telegraph in operation. The Chairman of the Committee-Mr. J. O. F. Smith-reported favorably on the electric telegraph, and then in order to be enabled to do so honorably, tendered his resignation to Congress, and bought himself an interest in the patent and went with Morse to Europe to obtain patent-rights in the old world. In Europe Prof. Morse astonished even the Savants by the scientific and ingenious manner in which he applied electricity to the practical purposes of life. In the Academy of Sciences of France he was treated with high consideration. To the members of that distinguished society he showed his invention, receiving their criticisms and admiration. In Europe he met the learned and venerable Humboldt. This celebrated scientist had himself experimented with electricity and had published to the world the secret of the power exerted by a species of fish-that which is sometimes in modern times, called the electric eel. He had given a graphic account of the combats which are sometimes waged by the gymnoti-or the so-called electric eel, which reaches a size of five or six feet in length,and the wild horses in the vicinity of the Colabozo, South Africa, a combat in which the formidable denizen of the water would occasionally strike terror into the hearts of the horses and paralyze or kill the poor brutes. Morse

also met at the same dinner table with Humboldt, the illustrious Arago who had also made valuable experiments with the mysterious forces of electricity. In a letter which Morse wrote from his sick-room at the unveiling of a statue of Humboldt he recalled his experience in the Academy of Sciences of France. He wrote: "I sat at a short distance from Baron Humboldt and I can never forget the feelings of encouragement, in those anxious moments, when, after the lucid explanation of my Telegraph to the Academy by M. Arago, the Baron Humboldt arose, and, taking my hand, congratulated me and thanked me before them all." Morse then alluded to his last conversation with Humboldt in which the venerable sage spoke with enthusiasm of American science and expatiated with warmth upon the scientific labors of Maury and Dana-characterizing one of Dana's books as one of the most valuable contributions to science of the age. It was natural that such a society as that of the Academy of Sciences of France should look with great gratification upon Morse's electric telegraph. Mr. Smith, Morse's partner, when thinking of how little the Government of the United States was doing in the meantime, in the matter of practically encouraging Morse, recalled a scene which had once taken place in the Academy of Sciences of France. On March 20th, 1800, Volta the philosopher, had explained to the Academy a discovery which he had made respecting electricity. When a committee announced the result of their examination of the discovery, Napoleon, who as President of the Academy was at the time presiding, at once arose from his chair, and moved to suspend the rules of the learned Society respecting the formalities it was accustomed to observe, and to at once confer a gold medal on the illustrious scientist. The proposition was carried by acclamation, and Napoleon on the same