Reaching Baltimore, he met Professor Morse. They had never met before. Their future lives were to be closely associated. In the conversation that ensued Morse explained what he proposed to do. An electric wire might either be laid underground or carried through the air. He had decided on the underground system, the wire being coated by an insulating compound and drawn through a pipe.
Cornell questioned him closely, got a clear idea of the scheme, saw the pipe that was to be used, and expressed doubts of its working.
"It will work, for it has worked," said Morse. "While I have been fighting Congress, inventors in Europe have been experimenting with the telegraphic idea. Short lines have been laid in England and elsewhere, in which the wire is carried in buried pipes. They had been successful. What can be done in Europe can be done in America."
What Morse said was a fact. While he had been pushing his telegraph conception in America it had been tried successfully in Europe. But the system adopted there, of vibrating needle signals, was so greatly inferior to the Morse system, that it was destined in the future to be almost or quite set aside by the latter. To-day the Morse system and alphabet are used in much the greater number of the telegraph offices of the world.
But to return to our story. Cornell went to work, and the pipe, with its interior wire, was laid with much rapidity. Not many days had elapsed before ten miles were underground, the pipe being neatly covered as laid. It reached from Baltimore nearly to the Relay House. Here it stopped, for something had gone wrong. Morse tested his wire. It would not work. No trace of an electric current could be got through it. The insulation was evidently imperfect. What was to be done? He would be charged with wasting the public money on an impracticable experiment. Yet if he stopped he might expect a roar of newspaper disapprobation of his whole scheme. He was in a serious dilemma. How should he escape?
He sought Cornell, and told him of the failure of his experiments. The work must be stopped. He must try other kinds of pipe and new methods of insulation. But if the public should suspect failure there would be vials of wrath poured on their devoted heads.
"The public shall not suspect failure. Leave it to me," said Cornell.
He turned to his men. The machine was slowly moving forward, drawn by a team of eight mules, depositing pipe as it went. A section had just been laid. Night was at hand.
"Hurry up, boys," cried Cornell, cheerily. "We must lay another length before we quit."
He grasped the handles of his plough-like machine; the drivers stirred up the mules to a lively pace; the contrivance went merrily forward. But the cunning pilot knew what he was about. He steered the buried point of the machine against a rock that just protruded from the earth. In an instant there was a shock, a sound of rending wood and iron, a noise of shouting and trampling; and then the line of mules came to a halt. But behind them were only the ruins of a machine. That moment's work had converted the pipe-laying contrivance into kindling-wood and scrap-iron.