To the Editors of the Journal of Commerce:
Gentlemen: You had the kindness to assert, a few days ago, my claim to the invention of the electro magnetic telegraph, for which I thank you. As to the priority of my invention, entirely planned and for the most part executed as it was nearly five years ago, I can adduce the amplest proof.
You announced that I was preparing a short circuit, to show to my friends the operation of the telegraph. This circuit I have completed, of the length of 1,700 feet, or about one-third of a mile; and on Saturday, the 2d instant, in presence of Professors Gale and Torrey of this city, and Professor Daubeny of the Oxford (English) University, and several other gentlemen, I tried a preliminary experiment with the register. It recorded the intelligence sufficiently perfect to establish the practicability of the plan, and the superior simplicity of my mode of communication, over any of those proposed by the professors in Europe.
It will be observed that no account has reached us that any of the foreign proposed electric telegraphs have as yet succeeded in transmitting intelligible communications; but it is merely asserted of the most advanced experiment, (the one in London,) that “by means of five wires,” &c. intelligence “may be conveyed.” I have the gratification of sending you a specimen of the writing of my telegraph, the actual transmission of a communication made this morning, in a more complete manner than on Saturday, and through the distance of one-third of a mile.
Thinking it may be gratifying to your readers to see the kind of writing which it performs, I have had it engraved for you, accompanied with an explanation.
Your obedient servant,
SAML. F. B. MORSE.
N. Y. City University, September 4, 1837.
[No. 5.]
Specimen of Telegraphic Writing made by means of electricity at the distance of one-third of a mile.
