I cannot say what time will be required for the completion of the circuits for fifty miles. If the order could be immediately given for the wire, I think all the other matter connected with it might be completed so that every thing would be in readiness in three months. Much will depend on the punctuality with which contractors fulfil their engagements in furnishing the wire and other apparatus.
I remain, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
SAMUEL F. B. MORSE.
To the Hon. F. O. J. Smith,
Chairman of the Committee on Commerce.
of the House of Representatives.
[No. 10.]
Mr. Ferris, from the Committee on Commerce, made the following Report, December 30, 1842.
That they regard the question, as to the general utility of the telegraphic system, settled by its adoption by the most civilized nations; and experience has fully demonstrated the great advantages which may be derived from its use. Its capability of speedily transmitting intelligence to great distances, for national defence, and for other purposes, where celerity is desirable, is decidedly superior to any of the ordinary modes of communication in use. By it, the first warning of approaching danger, and the appearance of hostile fleets and armies on our coasts and borders, may be announced simultaneously at the most distant points of our widely-extended empire, thus affording time and opportunity for concentrating the military force of the country, for facilitating military and naval movements, and for transmitting orders suitable to the emergency.
In the commercial and social affairs of the community, occasions frequently arise in which the speedy transmission of intelligence may be of the highest importance for the regulation of business transactions, and in relieving the anxious solicitude of friends, as to the health and condition of those in whose fortunes they feel an interest.
The practicability of establishing telegraphs on the electric principle is no longer a question. Wheatstone, of London, and his associates, have been more fortunate than our American inventor, in procuring the means to put his ingenious system into practical use for two or three hundred miles, in Great Britain; and the movements of the cars on the Blackwall rail road are at this time directed with great economy, and perfect safety to life and property, by means of his magnetic needle telegraph. If a system more complicated and less efficient than the American telegraph is operated for great distances in England, with such eminent success and advantage, there can be no reasonable doubt that, if the means be furnished for putting in operation the system of Professor Samuel F. B. Morse, of New York, the original inventor of the electro-magnetic telegraph, the same, if not greater success, will be the result. Your committee are of opinion that it is but justice to Professor Morse, who is alike distinguished for his attainments in science and excellence in the arts of design, and who has patiently devoted many years of unremitting study, and freely spent his private fortune, in inventing and bringing to perfection a system of telegraphs which is calculated to advance the scientific reputation of the country, and to be eminently useful, both to the Government and the people, that he should be furnished with the means of competing with his European rivals.
Professor Morse bases his system upon the two following facts in science:
First. That a current of electricity will pass to any distance along a conductor connecting the two poles of a voltaic battery or generator of electricity, and produce visible effects at any desired points on that conductor.