Historic Inventions

by Rupert Sargent Holland

He knew what he wanted to do, to paint great historical pictures. But the public did not appreciate his efforts in that line. He painted a large exhibition picture for the National House of Representatives, but it was not purchased by the government. On the other hand the Corporation of New York commissioned him to paint the portrait of Lafayette, who was then visiting America. At the same time he became enthusiastic over the founding of a new society of artists, and was chosen the first president of the National Academy of Design.

His small capital was dwindling. His efforts to paint historical pictures rather than portraits, and his share in paying off certain debts of his father’s, had made great inroads on the money he had saved. To add to his misfortunes his wife died in February, 1825. In 1829 he went abroad, visited the great galleries of Europe, and tried to find a more ready market for his historical studies. It was on his return from France in 1832 that the conversation of Dr. Jackson and the other passengers turned his thoughts in the direction of an electric telegraph.

Now came his gradual transformation from painter to inventor. His brothers gave him a room with them in New York, and this became his studio and laboratory at one and the same time. Easels and plastercasts were mixed with type-moulds and galvanic batteries, and Morse turned from a portrait to his working model of telegraph transmitter and back again a dozen times a day. He painted to make his living, but his interest was steadily turning to his invention.

He had many friends, and a wide reputation as a man of great intellectual ability, and in a few years he was appointed the first Professor of the Literature of the Arts of Design in the new University of the City of New York. This gave him a home in the university building on Washington Square, and there he moved his apparatus. At this time he was chiefly concerned with the question of how far a message could be sent by the electric current, for it was known that the current grew feebler in proportion to the resistance of the wire through which it travels. He had learned that the electro-magnet at the receiving end would at any great distance become so enfeebled that it would fail to make any record of the message. His solution of this difficulty was a relay system. He explained this to Professor Gale, a colleague at the university, who later testified as to Morse’s work. “Suppose,” said the inventor, “that in experimenting on twenty miles of wire we should find that the power of magnetism is so feeble that it will not move a lever with certainty a hair’s breadth: that would be insufficient, it may be, to write or print; yet it would be sufficient to close and break another or a second circuit twenty miles farther, and this second circuit could be made, in the same manner, to break and close a third circuit twenty miles farther, and so on around the globe.” Gale proved of great assistance. So far Morse had only used his recorder over a few yards of wire, his electro-magnet had been of the simplest make, and his battery was a single pair of plates. Gale suggested that his simple electro-magnet, with its few turns of thick wire, should be replaced by one with a coil of long thin wire. In this way a much feebler current would be able to excite the magnet, and the recorder would mark at a much greater distance. He also urged the use of a much more powerful battery. The two men now erected a working telegraph in the rooms of the university, and found that they could send and receive messages at will.

It is interesting to read Morse’s own words in regard to the beginning of his work at Washington Square. “There,” he said, “I immediately commenced, with very limited means, to experiment upon my invention. My first instrument was made up of an old picture or canvas frame fastened to a table; the wheels of an old wooden clock, moved by a weight to carry the paper forward; three wooden drums, upon one of which the paper was wound and passed over the other two; a wooden pendulum suspended to the top piece of the picture or stretching frame and vibrating across the paper as it passed over the centre wooden drum; a pencil at the lower end of the pendulum, in contact with the paper; an electro-magnet fastened to a shelf across the picture or stretching frame, opposite to an armature made fast to the pendulum; a type rule and type for breaking the circuit, resting on an endless band, composed of carpet-binding, which passed over two wooden rollers moved by a wooden crank.

“Up to the autumn of 1837 my telegraphic apparatus existed in so rude a form that I felt a reluctance to have it seen. My means were very limited—so limited as to preclude the possibility of constructing an apparatus of such mechanical finish as to warrant my success in venturing upon its public exhibition. I had no wish to expose to ridicule the representative of so many hours of laborious thought. Prior to the summer of 1837, at which time Mr. Alfred Vail’s attention became attracted to my telegraph, I depended upon my pencil for subsistence. Indeed, so straightened were my circumstances that, in order to save time to carry out my invention and to economize my scanty means, I had for many months lodged and eaten in my studio, procuring my food in small quantities from some grocery and preparing it myself. To conceal from my friends the stinted manner in which I lived, I was in the habit of bringing my food to my room in the evenings, and this was my mode of life for many years.”

Before he devoted all his time to his invention Morse had been anxious to paint a large historical picture for one of the panels in the rotunda of the Capitol at Washington. His offer had been rejected, and this had led a number of his friends to raise a fund and commission him to paint such a picture. He chose as his subject “The Signing of the First Compact on Board the Mayflower.” But he was now so much engrossed with his experiments that he gave up the plan and the fund was returned to the subscribers.

We have already heard in Morse’s statement of the arrival of Mr. Alfred Vail. He was to have much to do with the success of Morse’s invention. He had happened to call at the university building when the inventor was showing his models to several visiting scientists. “Professor Morse,” said Mr. Vail, “was exhibiting to these gentlemen an apparatus which he called his Electro-Magnetic Telegraph. There were wires suspended in the room running from one end of it to the other, and returning many times, making a length of several hundred feet. The two ends of the wire were connected with an electro-magnet fastened to a vertical wooden frame. In front of the magnet was its armature, and also a wooden lever or arm fitted at its extremity to hold a lead pencil.... I saw this instrument work, and became thoroughly acquainted with the principle of its operation, and, I may say, struck with the rude machine, containing, as I believed, the germ of what was destined to produce great changes in the conditions and relations of mankind. I well recollect the impression which was then made upon my mind.... Before leaving the room in which I beheld for the first time this magnificent invention, I asked Professor Morse if he intended to make an experiment on a more extended line of conductors. He replied that he did, but that he desired pecuniary assistance to carry out his plans. I promised him assistance provided he would admit me into a share of the invention, to which proposition he assented.... The question then arose in my mind, whether the electro-magnet could be made to work through the necessary lengths of line, and after much reflection I came to the conclusion that, provided the magnet would work even at a distance of eight or ten miles, there could be no risk in embarking in the enterprise. And upon this I decided in my own mind to sink or swim with it.”

Alfred Vail secured his father’s financial assistance, and in September, 1837, an agreement was executed by which Vail was to construct a model of Morse’s telegraph for exhibition to Congress, and to secure the necessary United States patents, in return for which he was to have a one-fourth interest in these patent rights. The patent was obtained on October 3, 1837, and Vail set to work to prepare the new models. Almost all the apparatus that was used had to be specially made for the purpose, or altered from its original use. The first working battery was placed in a cherry-wood box divided into cells and lined with beeswax, and the insulated wire was the same as that the milliners used in building up the high bonnets fashionable at that day. Vail made certain improvements as he worked on his model. He replaced the recording pencil with a fountain pen, and instead of the zigzag signals used the short and long lines that came to be called “dots” and “dashes.” He learned from the typesetters of a newspaper office what letters occurred most frequently in ordinary usage, and constructed the Morse or Vail code on the principle of using the simplest signals to represent those letters that would be most needed.

By the winter of 1837 many people had seen the telegraph instruments at the university building, but few of them considered them more than ingenious toys. Scientific men had talked of the possibilities of an electric telegraph for a number of years, but the public had seen none actually installed. Even Vail’s father began to doubt the wisdom of his son’s investment. To convince him the young man, on January 6, 1838, asked his father to come to the experimenting shop where Morse and he were working. He explained how the model operated, and said that he could send any message to Morse, who was stationed some distance away at the receiving end. The father took a piece of paper, and wrote on it, “A patient waiter is no loser.” “There,” said he, “if you can send this, and Mr. Morse can read it at the other end I shall be convinced.” The message was sent over the wire, and correctly read by Morse. Then Mr. Vail admitted that he was satisfied.