Lives of the electricians

The practical working of the telegraph being now demonstrated, Professor Morse may be said to have forsaken his first vocation. He afterwards assured his artist friends that his leaving their ranks cost him many a pang, and that he did not leave them till he saw them well established and entering upon a career of prosperity. He also pointed out that in the records of art there were conspicuous examples of men forsaking art to enter upon a career of invention. The American Fulton, whose scientific studies led to the introduction of steam navigation was a painter, and “it may not be generally known that the important invention of the percussion cap was due to the scientific recreations of the English painter Shaw.” In like manner Daguerre, who in France discovered the art of photography, was an artist; and just when Professor Morse was prosecuting his art studies with the greatest zeal and hope, it was stated that in early life painting was the favourite amusement of Sir Humphry Davy, who was diverted from art to chemistry by the results of some experiments instituted for the purpose of preparing colours. To such examples has now to be added the inventor of the recording telegraph. Professor Morse always claimed for himself the credit of being the inventor of the first telegraph, by which, however, he meant a telegraph in the strict definition of the word—a means of recording intelligence at a distance. From that point of view he contended that the invention of Wheatstone and Cooke was a semaphore, which merely indicated letters on a dial by the movement of needles; and that while the invention of a telegraph was one thing, its practical introduction was quite another thing—the time of the invention was one thing and the time of its practical introduction another. “In 1832,” he said, in reply to a challenge from W. F. Cooke, “I had the idea of producing an automatic record at a distance by means of electricity, the idea of a true telegraph; and this original idea was immediately followed by the invention of the means for carrying it into effect. This was the new idea of 1832 now realised in the Morse telegraph system, and the Chief Justice of the United States, in delivering the judgment of the supreme court, said there was full and clear evidence that when Morse was returning from Europe in 1832 he was deeply engaged upon this subject during the voyage, and that the process and means were so far developed and arranged in his own mind that he was confident of its ultimate success.” The inventor admitted that 1844 was the date of the practical introduction of the invention of 1832; and he did not claim exclusive credit for the invention. He himself stated that it rarely, if ever, happened that any invention was so independent of all others that a single individual could justly appropriate to himself the entire credit of all its parts. “It is only,” he said, “when the nature of an invention is properly understood that the justice of the ascription of honour to the individual inventor is perceived. Invention is emphatically combination, an assembling or putting together of things known, whether discoveries or other inventions, to produce a new effect, to create a new art.” If that definition appears to be especially adapted to suit his own circumstances, it is worthy of remark that similar definitions were given by Aristotle and Bacon.

Professor Morse always felt sure that if he had only an opportunity of demonstrating the operation of his telegraph, its utility would be self-evident. Sad experience had taught him that it was not an easy task to convince a money-making people of the value of a mere work of art,—“a thing of beauty;” but how different, he thought, would be the case with the electric telegraph, which he believed capable of uniting, by “the pulse of speech,” the New World with the Old, which seemed destined to annihilate space, and to extend to peoples far apart one of the greatest gifts bestowed by the Creator upon persons near each other—an instantaneous intercharge of thought. Had he not solved the problem which the ancient Hebrew propounded as a sublime impossibility: “Canst thou send lightnings that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we are?” Yea, more,—he had made the element which Franklin had proved to be akin to lightning not only the messenger but the recorder of human speech. But even this was not enough to command success. Difficulty and disappointment were still before him. In the great tragedy of Æschylus illustrating the struggle of mind against circumstances and the ingratitude of mankind to inventors, Prometheus is represented as conferring a great blessing upon mortals by causing blind hopes to dwell among them, and thus stopping them from ever looking forward to their fate. But higher aspirations impelled Morse onward in his beneficent career. Have ye never observed, said Saurin, that people of the finest and most enlarged geniuses have often the least success of any people in the world? “This may appear at first sight very unaccountable, but a little attention will explain the mystery. A narrow, contracted mind usually concentrates itself in one single object: it wholly employs itself in forming projects of happiness proportioned to its own capacity, and as its capacity is extremely shallow, it easily meets with the means of executing them. But this is not the case with a man of superior genius, whose fruitful fancy forms notions of happiness grand and sublime. He invents noble plans, involuntarily gives himself up to his own chimeras, and derives a pleasure from these ingenious shadows, which for a few moments compensate for the want of substance; but when his reverie is over, he finds real beings inferior to ideal ones, and thus his genius serves to make him miserable. A man is much to be pitied when the penetration of his mind and the fruitfulness of his invention furnish him with ideas of a delighted community attached by a faithful and delicate appreciation. Recall to him this world, above which his imagination had just now raised him; consider him among men whose knowledge and friendship are merely superficial, and you will be convinced that the art of inventing is often the art of self-tormenting.” Need we wonder, then, that after the utility of Morse’s telegraph was fully demonstrated, he experienced unexpected difficulty as to its adoption. His first idea was to attach it to the Post Office Department. “My earliest desires,” he said, “were that the Government should possess the control of such a power as I could not but foresee was inherent in the telegraph. Vast as its pecuniary value loomed up in the minds of some, in the contemplation of its future I was neither dazzled with its visions of untold wealth, nor tempted to make an extortionate demand upon the Government for its possession. Not merely all my own property had been expended on the invention, but large sums had been advanced by my associates, and these were items that entered into the calculations of any offer of sale.” In September, 1837, he suggested in a letter to the Secretary that it would be a useful auxiliary to the Post Office, and the Secretary supported the suggestion in a letter to the Speaker of the House on December 6, 1837. Two months later the importunate inventor repeated his proposal to the Chairman of the House Committee of Commerce. Again, in 1842, the Hon. C. G. Ferris, writing from the Committee of Commerce, remarked that the prospects of profit to individual enterprise were so inviting that “it is a matter of serious consideration whether the Government should not on this account alone seize the present opportunity of securing to itself the regulation of a system which, if monopolised by a private company, might be used to the serious injury of the Post Office Department.”

When negotiating with the Government in reference to the grant for the experimental line, Professor Morse undertook that, before entering into any arrangement for disposing of his patent rights to any individual or company, he would offer it to the Government for such a just and reasonable compensation as might be mutually agreed upon. Accordingly, after the construction of the experimental line and the successful demonstration of its working, he offered the whole of his rights to the Government for 100,000 dollars. The only notice the Government took of this offer was to request from the Postmaster-General a report on the subject. The Postmaster-General in 1845 happened to be Mr. Cave Johnson, who in Congress ridiculed and opposed the telegraph bill, and who now had under his control the experimental line from Washington to Baltimore. The reply he gave to Professor Morse’s offer was that he was not yet satisfied that under any rate of postage the revenue of the telegraph could be made equal to the expenditure. One half of the time for which his patent granted protection had now expired, and it was therefore necessary to use every means to make it a commercial success. This Professor Morse did, but being unwilling to “shut the door” against the Government, he inserted a proviso in every contract he made for the use of the telegraph, that if the Government concluded arrangements for the purchase of it by the 4th of March, 1847, the contract should cease. Nevertheless the Government allowed the opportunity to go unheeded, and the Professor complained not only of the disappointment thus occasioned, but of the prejudice it created against him. Companies had been formed for constructing lines from Baltimore to New York and from New York to Buffalo, and the promoters at the outset were hopeful that the revenue would at least equal the expenditure; but the conduct of the Government for a time seemed to cast a blight upon their prospects. In after years Professor Morse declared that but for the indomitable energy and faith of the friends who then supported him by their influence and money, his telegraph might have been abandoned as too expensive to be practicable. Conspicuous among his supporters was Mr. Amos Kendall, who had formerly been Postmaster-General, and who was the prime mover in forming joint-stock companies to construct and work the telegraph. On April 1st, 1845, the line from Washington to Baltimore was opened for public business, the charge being a cent (or a halfpenny) for every four characters. The first line constructed after the experimental one was that of the Magnetic Telegraph Company from Philadelphia to Norristown, Pa., a length of 14 miles, which was opened in November, 1845; it was continued to Fort Lee in the January following, and completed from Philadelphia to Baltimore on June 5, 1846.

Once fairly started, the telegraph in America made such rapid strides as soon eclipsed its progress in those countries in which it had an earlier start. Within half a dozen years about thirty Companies were formed to carry on the work of telegraphic extension, and to reap the profits of an invention which the Government could not be induced to accept. Sir Robert Inglis, in his address as President of the British Association meeting at Oxford in June, 1847, stated that he had just received a report presented to the Legislative Council and Assembly of New Brunswick relating to a project for constructing a railway and a line of telegraph from Halifax to Quebec, with reference to which he said: “Distance is time, and when by steam, whether on water or on land, personal communication is facilitated, and when orders are conveyed from one extremity of the Empire to another almost like a flash of lightning, the facility of governing a large State becomes almost equal to the facility of governing the smallest. I remember reading many years ago in the Scotsman an ingenious and able article showing how England could be governed as easily as Attica under Pericles; and I believe the same conclusion was deduced by William Cobbett from the same illustration. The system is daily extending. It was, however, in the United States of America that it was first adopted on a great scale, by Professor Morse in 1844; and it is there that it is now already developed most extensively. Lines for above 1,300 miles are in action, and connect those States with Her Majesty’s Canadian provinces; and it is in a course of development so rapid that, in the words of the Report of Mr. Wilkinson to Sir W. E. Colebrooke, the Governor of New Brunswick, no schedule of telegraphic lines can now be relied upon for a month in succession, as hundreds of miles may be added in that space of time. So easy of attainment does such a result appear to be, and so lively is the interest felt in its accomplishment, that it is scarcely doubtful that the whole of the populous parts of the United States will, within two or three years, be covered with a network like a spider’s web, suspending its principal threads upon important points, along the sea board of the Atlantic on one side, and upon similar points along the Lake Frontier on the other. I am indebted to the same Report for another fact, which I think of equal interest: The confidence in the efficiency of telegraphic communication has now become so established, that the most important commercial transactions daily transpire, by its means, between correspondents several hundred miles apart. Ocular evidence of this was afforded by a communication a few minutes old between a merchant in Toronto and his correspondent in New York, distant about 632 miles. When the Hibernia steamer arrived in Boston in January, 1847, with the news of the scarcity in Great Britain, Ireland, and other parts of Europe, and with heavy orders for agricultural produce, the farmers in the interior of the State of New York—informed of the state of things by the Magnetic Telegraph—were thronging the streets of Albany with innumerable team-loads of grain almost as quickly after the arrival of the steamer at Boston as the news of that arrival could ordinarily have reached them. I may add that, irrespectively of all its advantages to the general community, the system appears to give already a fair return of interest to the individuals or companies who have invested their capital in its application. I cannot refer to the extent of the lines of the electric telegraph in America without an increased feeling of regret that in England this great discovery has been so inadequately adopted. So far at least as the capital is concerned, the two greatest of our railway companies have not, I believe, yet carried the electric telegraph further from London than to Watford and Slough.”

About the same time Professor Morse stated that, as the result of improvements in his telegraph, the President’s entire message on the subject of the war with Mexico was transmitted with perfect accuracy at the rate of ninety-nine letters per minute. His skilful operators in Washington and Baltimore printed these characters at the rate of 98, 101, 111, and one of them actually printed 117 letters per minute. It was pointed out that as an expert penman seldom writes legibly more than 100 letters per minute, the Morse telegraph then about equalled the most expeditious mode of recording thought.

Between 1844 and 1855 the telegraph was used for another purpose which was regarded in the world of science as of great importance. In 1839 Professor Morse, while in Paris, suggested to Arago that the telegraph might be used for determining the difference of longitude between places with an accuracy previously unattainable. The first experiment for the determination of longitude was made in 1844 at Baltimore, and fully realised the expectation of Professor Morse. The Battle Monument Square, Baltimore, was found to be 1 m. 34 sec. ·868 east of the capital at Washington, a difference of three quarters of a second from the former results recorded in the American Almanac. This may appear a trifling matter to unscientific readers, but a short explanation will show its importance. The latitude of any place—its distance from the equator north or south—can be accurately determined by astronomical observation; but its longitude, or distance east or west of any particular place agreed upon as a meridional standard, such as Greenwich, was often determined with difficulty. It is well known that in the diurnal rotation of the earth every portion of its surface is turned towards the sun once in twenty-four hours, and that noon occurs at places east of Greenwich earlier than at Greenwich, and later at places west of Greenwich. The difference between the local time at any particular place and Greenwich time is the longitude of that place from Greenwich; but much difficulty was formerly experienced in ascertaining the exact time at both places at the instant adopted for comparison. At sea it was formerly determined by elaborate observations of the position of the moon among the stars; and latterly both on land and sea it was generally done by carrying a good chronometer from the one place to the other, the difference between the local time and the Greenwich time recorded by the chronometer giving the longitude. But the exactness of this method depended upon the accuracy of the chronometer, and the rapidity with which it could be carried from one place to the other. But now by means of the telegraph, when the wire is kept clear for the purpose, the time at one place can be instantaneously transmitted to another place; and if the local time at each place is correct, the difference gives the longitude.

It is worthy of remark that just about a century before the invention of the Morse telegraph the marine chronometer was invented by John Harrison, an ingenious cabinet maker, expressly for the purpose of determining longitude at sea; and he was induced to do so by the British Government offering a reward of 20,000l. 15,000l. or 10,000l. for a discovery which might prove successful in determining longitude at sea. Now Morse, without any offer of reward, invented his telegraph, and not only suggested its use for determining longitude on land, but himself directed the first experiment between Washington and Baltimore to prove its practicability for that purpose. In 1847 it was announced that the relative longitudes of New York, Philadelphia, and Washington had been determined by means of the telegraph, and it was added that two important facts, before known theoretically, were then practically demonstrated, that a clock in New York could be compared with another at a distance of 200 miles quite as accurately as two clocks in adjoining rooms, and that “the time required for the electric fluid to travel from New York to Washington and back again, a distance of 450 miles, is so small a fraction of a second that it is inappreciable to the most practised observer.” So well was this method appreciated that Lieutenant Maury, of the United States Navy, stated in 1849, that as the electric telegraph then extended through all the States of the Union, except perhaps Arkansas, Texas, and one other frontier, “a splendid field is presented for doing the world a service by connecting, for difference of longitude through means of magnetic telegraph and clock, all the principal points of this country with the Observatory at Washington. In anticipation of such extension of the wires, I ordered an instrument for the purpose, and it has recently arrived. It is intended to determine latitude also—so that by its means and this clock I hope, during the year, to know pretty accurately the geographical position of Montreal, Boston, Chicago, St. Louis, New Orleans, &c., and their difference of longitude from Washington, quite as correctly as the difference between Greenwich and Paris has been established by the usual method and after many years of observation.”

The telegraphic method was first tried in England in May, 1853, when the Astronomer Royal ascertained the difference of longitude between the observatories of Greenwich and Cambridge. On the Continent Professor Encke in the same year determined the difference of longitude between Berlin and Frankfort-on-the-Main; and the difference between Greenwich and Paris was determined in 1854.

In 1853, eight years after the opening of the first line of telegraph in America, there were 25,000 miles of wire erected at a cost of 1,000,000l., and it was reported that in working these lines there were consumed 720 tons of zinc, worth 12,000l., over 1,000,000 lbs. of nitric acid, worth 24,000l., and 6,000l. worth of mercury in a year. The most distant points then connected by telegraph were the cities of Halifax (Nova Scotia) and Quebec with New Orleans, a length of 2,000 miles. The distance by telegraph between New York and New Orleans was 3,000 miles, and messages from the one town to the other were delivered in an hour. A report published in 1853, stated that by the aid of the telegraph the vast republic of America, 3,000 miles long by 3,000 broad, could be as easily managed and governed as a single city, and that “a long experience in America,” with some dozen different lines of telegraph, established the fact that the velocity of the electric current was about 15,400 miles per second. The time occupied in transmission between Boston and Bangor having been exactly measured, it was found to be the sixteen-thousandth part of a second, the velocity of the current being at the rate of 16,000 miles per second, or about 600 miles per second more than the average of other experiments in that country.

In 1886 it was computed that on the telegraph lines of the United States 30,000 Morse sounders were in daily use, and that the total consumption of copper in the local batteries amounted to about 750,000 lbs. per annum, which cost 6,300l., together with 100,000 lbs. of zinc which cost 1,200l.

A short description of the Morse apparatus in its improved form may be conveniently given here. The illustration shows the transmitting key in its simplest shape. It is evident that by merely depressing the handle till the upper lever comes in contact with the lower bar of metal at the point A, a current of electricity will flow through the point of contact from the battery wire to the telegraph wire. In order to break the contact or circuit, the operator has simply to desist from depressing the handle of the upper lever, which is instantly raised from contact by the action of the spring at the other end. The operator can thus make and break the circuit at pleasure, and according to the frequency and duration of the act of depressing the handle will be the number and length of the signs produced at the far end of the telegraph wire. A long and strong depression of the handle would allow the passage of sufficient electricity to make a long sign; and if the operator next made two short depressions, giving two short signs, the three together, thus — - -, would mean D. If the receiving instrument called the Sounder were in use, instead of the Recorder, long and short sounds would be produced in proportion to the quantity of electricity transmitted, instead of long and short ink marks. The Sounder is a simpler instrument than the Recorder, and is in more general use. The chief part of its operation is effected by means of the relay or local battery. A simple illustration shows its essential parts. When a current of electricity from the transmitter comes along the telegraph wire, it enters the electro-magnet E M, which forms the central part of the apparatus, and which, being thus electrified, attracts to itself the armature C, just above it. In this way the moveable lever, B C D, is drawn down till its point, D, touches the point of the lower screw, L, which is saturated with electricity from the local battery. Immediately the end of the lever, D, touches the point of the lower screw, L, electricity flows from the latter into the former, the quantity of electricity being proportionate to the length of the contact, or, to use a more technical term, to the time that the local circuit is thus complete; but the instant the current sent along the telegraph wire ceases, the electro-magnet, E M, becomes powerless, the end of the moveable lever, D, is drawn, by the spring S, away from the lower screw, L, and strikes against the higher screw, H, thus making a clicking sound, the loudness and duration of which are proportionate to the current of electricity originally sent; but at the same time the original current, especially on long lines, would be quite inadequate to affect the lever with the strength that it acquires from the local battery during its momentary contact with the lower screw, L. The loud and feeble sounds combined with long and short intervals between them represent letters of the alphabet, but it requires a practised ear to interpret them. In the Recorder, the arrival of a current in the electro-magnet and the consequent lowering of the lever brings an ink siphon in contact with a moving strip of paper and thus produces a dash; and when the current ceases the lever is raised, thus withdrawing the ink siphon from the paper; so that the dash produced is long or short in proportion to the current sent along the telegraph wire.

Such is the simple but ingenious apparatus which, by its universal use, has made the name of Morse known throughout the civilised world. Its invention, however, was not the only telegraphic achievement with which he was connected. Mention has already been made of his first attempt at submarine telegraphy; and in later years he actively promoted the carrying out of the greatest enterprise of that description.

In 1853 it was stated, in certain American and English newspapers, that a recent discovery had been made in telegraphing which might work as great a revolution in the world of letters and commerce as had already been effected by the original application of electricity or magnetism to the purposes of telegraphic communication. It was generally assumed till then that there was a limit to the force of electric currents, and that they could not be made strong enough to be sent across the Atlantic. Under that impression it had been proposed to construct a submarine telegraph between Great Britain and the United States by a circuitous route across the various straits and channels lying between the intermediate islands of the North Atlantic Ocean, commencing at the north of Scotland, proceeding by the Shetland and Faroe Islands to Iceland, a distance of 300 miles, next landing on the shores of Greenland and going across land to Davis Strait, after crossing which it would reach the mainland of Labrador. In 1852 it was announced that “the vast enterprise” of connecting the Old and New Worlds by this route had been commenced by sinking the first line in Transatlantic waters between Cape Lormentine, New Brunswick, and Carlton Head on Prince Edward Island; and next year it was pompously announced as a new discovery that the electric current might be sent to “any conceivable distance,” and the newspapers, in publishing the announcement, said it could not any longer be doubted that the ocean telegraph would be realised, and that “a line of wires will encircle the whole earth, bringing all parts of it into instantaneous communication with each other. It is impossible for any human foresight to estimate or predict even the results of such a communication, and we trust that the Governments of the United States and Great Britain will take up the matter of an oceanic line on a scale commensurate with its importance, providing such a number of distinct wires enclosed in one cable as will supply the necessities of commerce and intercourse between Europe and America.”

Early in 1854 Mr. Cyrus Field took an active interest in the project for laying a cable in mid ocean between America and Europe; and one of the first things he did was to send for Professor Morse and to consult him as to the practicability of telegraphing such a long distance. The Professor called on Mr. Field and entered into a full exposition of the subject, assuring him that the project was practicable. Next year the New York, Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company was formed, and they obtained from the Government of Newfoundland an act of incorporation, a guarantee of interest on 50,000l. of the company’s bonds, and a grant of fifty square miles of land on the island of Newfoundland. The Governments of Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Canada, and the State of Maine, as well as those of Great Britain and the United States, also made substantial grants. In 1855 an attempt was made to connect St. John’s with the mainland, but this was not successfully accomplished till 1856, and the line was then continued across the island to Trinity Bay, the American terminus of the Atlantic telegraph. In 1856 Mr. Field visited England for the purpose of enlisting English capitalists in the enterprise, and his mission was so successful that in 1857 the Atlantic Telegraph Company was formed. It acquired all the rights and privileges of the New York, Newfoundland, and London Company; and within a month raised a capital of 350,000l. The British Government offered to the company the use of the war vessel Agamemnon for the purpose of laying a cable, while the United States Government in like manner offered their newest and finest vessel—the Niagara—which was 715 feet long and 56 feet wide. The main question at issue was whether electric signals could be transmitted through a cable 2,300 miles in length. At the close of 1856 Professor Morse, who was then regarded as the greatest authority on the subject, calculated that ten words could be transmitted in a minute. In a report which he furnished to the company he explained that gutta-percha covered submarine wires did not transmit in the same way as simple insulated conductors, that they had to be charged like a Leyden jar before they could transmit at all, and that the velocity of transmission was consequently much slower than in ordinary conductors. In the Leyden jar—a glass vessel covered with tinfoil both inside and outside—the electricity, entering at the neck, charges the interior metallic coating, and at the same time induces or generates electricity in the outside coating, the electricity on the one side being positive, and on the other side negative. In a submarine cable the electricity charged into the wire behaves in a manner similar to that in a Leyden jar; in the one case the gutta-percha is the insulator; in the other case it is the glass jar. Professor Morse pointed out that as the opposite electricities attracted each other in the wire of a cable, the current was thus retarded in its rate of motion. This inductive retardation was dreaded in a long cable; but Professor Morse suggested that the velocity of the transmission of signals along insulated submerged wires could be enormously increased, from the rate of one signal in two seconds to eight in one second, by making each alternate signal with a current of different quality, positive following negative, and negative following positive.

In April, 1857, the Niagara came to England, where the first Atlantic cable was being manufactured. Professor Morse came too; and the day after he disembarked at Gravesend he entered fully into the prospects and capabilities of the cable. He was fond of assuring English inquirers as to the desire in America for a cable, that it was the ambition of the people of the United States to know what was done in England before it took place; as an event happening in London at noon would, if the cable were laid, be published in New York on the morning of the same day. But he had more solid reasons than that to give in support of the undertaking. He stated that he was anxious to see the cable in active operation under the ocean because he had a firm conviction that then the chances of conflict and of misunderstanding between Englishmen and Americans must be diminished in an incalculable degree. He felt sure that it would be used for no hostile purpose, and that when New York would become a suburb of London, and Washington the western half of Westminster, an American war would be about as likely a thing as Camberwell organising an attack upon Camden Town, or Peckham making a raid upon Pimlico. All wars, he said, arise in ignorance and misunderstanding of the real objects and interests of the race by which they are waged: to increase the facilities for an interchange of ideas, for the opening out of commercial relations, and for the development of intelligence, must be to diminish the need of appeals from reason to force; and a small cable laid quietly at the bottom of the Atlantic at a cost of 350,000l. would do more for the maintenance of international peace and for the furtherance of national prosperity than an expenditure of 10,000,000l. a year on each side of the Atlantic in the construction and commissioning of such armed Leviathans as would carry and pioneer the electrical rope to its resting-place. In reporting these words of Professor Morse the directors of the Atlantic Telegraph Company said the shareholders would not be unwilling to receive his “opinion and assurance upon that point as the first instalment of their interest.” Equally complimentary was the appreciation they expressed of his opinion as to the feasibility of the undertaking. In 1856 when it was determined to make experiments on long lengths of telegraph wires for the purpose of proving that intelligence could be transmitted for long distances, it was proposed to provide the requisite length of cable by joining together the underground lines of the English and Irish Magnetic Telegraph Company, extending from London to Dublin viâ Dumfries. These lines were 600 miles long, and were capable of forming a continuous length of 5,000 miles. The directors stated that every possible precaution was taken in this trial to guard against accidental causes of error by the introduction of test instruments at each available point of junction, and “to crown the whole, the veteran electrician, Professor Morse, of the United States, was present at the operations and witnessed the result.” On the night of October 2nd, “the conclave of experimenters” met at the office of the Magnetic Telegraph Company in Old Broad Street, London, and made their experiments on a circuit of subterranean or submarine wires which was considered to present the nearest approach to the working of a real and continuous submarine cable. The arrangements were considered perfectly satisfactory, and the result was described as an unquestionable triumph. By means of one of Morse’s ordinary receiving instruments signals were distinctly telegraphed through 2,000 miles of wire at the rate of 210, 241, and on one occasion 270 per minute. Elated at the realisation of his anticipations, Professor Morse wrote to Mr. Cyrus Field, stating that “there could be no question that, with a cable containing a single conducting wire, of a size not exceeding that through which we worked, and with equal insulation, it would be easy to telegraph from Ireland to Newfoundland at a speed of at least from eight to ten words per minute. Take it at ten words in a minute, and allowing ten words for name and address, we can safely calculate upon the transmission of a twenty-word message in three minutes—twenty such messages in an hour, 480 in the twenty-four hours, or 14,400 words per day. Such are the capabilities of a single wire cable fairly and moderately computed. It is, however, evident to me that by improvements in the arrangement of the signals themselves, aided by the adoption of a code or system constructed upon the principles of the best nautical code, we may at least double the speed in the transmission of our messages. In one word, the doubts are solved; the difficulties are overcome; success is within our reach; and the great feat of the century must shortly be accomplished.” The rate of transmission through the Atlantic cable was eventually from ten to twenty words a minute, but great improvements had to be made before the higher speed was attained.

In July, 1857, the Niagara went to Birkenhead to take on board one half of the cable which had been manufactured there, and having shipped her peculiar freight she proceeded to Queenstown, where she was joined by the Agamemnon, which had shipped the other half of the cable in the Thames. Off Queenstown the two halves of the cable in the ships were united so as to form a circuit of 2,500 miles. When charged with electricity it was found that a current flowed through the cable. Indeed, a distinct message was telegraphed through it, but the rate of transmitting signals was slow. One current occupied a second and three-quarters in passing through; but when it was found that three successive signals could be transmitted in two seconds, the prospect was considered satisfactory. The tests being so far successful, it was at first intended that the two vessels should proceed to mid ocean, whence, having joined together the two halves of the cable, each vessel could proceed towards the opposite shores. At the last hour, however, it was deemed more prudent to start paying out from the Irish coast. Accordingly, on August 4th, 1857, the two cable ships, each attended by three smaller vessels, left Queenstown, and arrived in Valencia Bay on the following day. After some inaugural ceremonies, the telegraph squadron started to pay out the cable on August 7th. Professor Morse was on board the Niagara, which began the work of paying out. On the morning of the fourth day (August 11th) the cable parted, and the 335 miles paid out appeared to be lost at the bottom of the ocean. In a letter describing the accident, Professor Morse said that at the time it occurred “there was a moderately heavy sea, which caused the ship’s stern to rise several feet and to fall to the same degree; when the stern fell, the cable under its immense strain went down into the water easily and quickly, but when the stern was lifted by the irresistible power of the succeeding wave the force exerted upon the cable under such circumstances would have parted a cable of four times the strength. Hence it is no wonder that our cable, subjected to such a tremendous and unnatural strain, should snap like a pack-thread. It did snap, and in an instant the whole course and plan of our future proceedings were necessarily changed. How many visions of wealth, of fame, and of pleasure were dependent for their realisation on the integrity of that little nerve thread, spinning out like a spider’s web from the stern of our noble ship and (in view of the mighty force of steam and waves and winds and mechanism brought to bear upon it) quite as frail. Yet with all its frailties, nothing could exceed the beauty of its quiet passage to its ocean bed from the moment we had joined it to the shore end till the fatal mistake of not easing the breaks which caused the breaking of it asunder. The effect on shipboard was very striking. It parted just before daylight. All hands rushed to the deck, but there was no confusion; the telegraph machinery had stopped; the men gathered in mournful groups, and their tones were sad and voices as low as if a death had occurred on board. I believe there was not a man in the ship who did not feel really as melancholy as if a comrade had been lost overboard.” On the vessels returning to Plymouth the chief electricians connected with the enterprise, Mr. W. Whitehouse, Professor Morse, and Professor William Thomson, issued a report certifying that “every experiment which we have made upon the cable, every test to which we have subjected it, both for its insulating and conducting power, has uniformly resulted in demonstrating the perfect fitness of the cable for its office. The treble covering of gutta-percha so entirely provides for the remote possibility of an accidental flaw occurring in the first or second coat, that all risk of defective insulation is avoided.” The directors determined to renew the attempt during a more favourable period of 1858 with certain improvements in the paying out machinery and with a greater length of cable. During the winter the whole of the cable was stored at Keyham Docks (Plymouth); and the British and American Governments having again granted the use of the same vessels, it was reshipped in the spring. The vessels first proceeded, in the last days of May, to the Bay of Biscay, where experiments were made for three days in splicing and paying out the cable, and both the mechanical and electrical tests were reported as very promising. The squadron returned to Plymouth, whence they sailed again on June 10th, 1858. While proceeding to mid ocean, where they were to join the two halves and then commence paying out, they encountered a fearful gale, and when they reached the trysting place three attempts to lay the cable proved unsuccessful. In the first attempt the cable parted after two miles and forty fathoms were paid out, in the second attempt forty-two miles and 300 fathoms, and in the third attempt 145 miles and 930 fathoms were paid out. The vessels then returned to Queenstown to replenish their coal supplies. They started again on July 12th, and having joined the cable ends together on the 29th, in mid ocean, the Niagara landed at Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, on August 5th. The Agamemnon had likewise reached Valencia, all well. It was found that through the cable thus laid from shore to shore electric signals passed at the same rate as in the tests made in England; messages were transmitted for nearly a month, after which defects in insulation gradually increased. After transmitting 366 messages it ceased “to speak” on October 20th, 1858. In the latter and successful expedition Professor Morse took no active part. By that time the work which he had taken a foremost part in initiating had fallen into younger and more energetic hands, while his attention was diverted to the honours and rewards which ought to crown a well-spent life, and which are more congenial to a man in his sixty-seventh year than the carrying out of an enterprise that he had pronounced feasible sixteen years previously. He lived to see it made a permanent success a quarter of a century after he had first suggested it.