Your most obedient servant
S.F.B. MORSE.
Before closing the record of this European trip, so disappointing in many ways and yet so encouraging in others, it may be well to note that, while he was in Paris, Morse in 1838 not only took out a patent on his recording telegraph, but also on a system to be used on railways to report automatically the presence of a train at any point on the line. A reproduction of his own drawing of the apparatus to be used is here given, and the mechanism is so simple that an explanation is hardly necessary. From it can be seen not only that he did, at this early date, realize the possibilities of his invention along various lines, but that it embodies the principle of the police and fire-alarm systems now in general use.
It is not recorded that he ever realized anything financially from this ingenious modification of his main invention. Commenting on it, and on his plans for a military telegraph, he gives this amusing sketch:—
"On September 10, 1838, a telegraph instrument constructed in the United States on the same principles, but slightly modified to make it portable, was exhibited to the Academy of Sciences in Paris, and explained by M. Arago at the session of that date. An account of this exhibition is recorded in the Comptes Rendus.
"A week or two after I exhibited at my lodgings, in connection with this instrument, my railroad telegraph, an application of signals by sound, for which I took out letters patent in Paris, and at the same time I communicated to the Minister of War, General Bernard, my plans for a military telegraph with which he was much pleased.
[Illustration: RAILWAY TELEGRAPH DRAWING BY MORSE
Patented by him in France in 1838, and embodying principles of Police and
Fire Alarm Telegraph]
"I dined with him by invitation, and in the evening, repairing with him to his billiard-room, while the rest of the guests were amusing themselves with the game, I gave him a general description of my plan. He listened with deep attention while I advocated its use on the battle-field, and gave him my reasons for believing that the army first using the facilities of the electric telegraph for military purposes would be sure of victory. He replied to me, after my answering many of his questions:—
"'Be reticent,' said he, 'on this subject for the present. I will send an officer of high rank to see and converse with you on the matter to-morrow.'
"The next day I was visited by an old Marshal of France, whose name has escaped my memory. Conversing by an interpreter, the Reverend E.N. Kirk, of Boston, I found it difficult to make the Marshal understand its practicability or its importance. The dominant idea in the Marshal's mind, which he opposed to the project, was that it involved an increase of the material of the army, for I proposed the addition of two or more light wagons, each containing in a small box the telegraph instruments and a reel of fine insulated wire to be kept in readiness at the headquarters on the field. I proposed that, when required, the wagons with the corps of operators, two or three persons, at a rapid rate should reel off the wire to the right, the centre and the left of the army, as near to these parts of the army as practicable or convenient, and thus instantaneous notice of the condition of the whole army, and of the enemy's movements, would be given at headquarters.
"To all this explanation of my plan was opposed the constant objection that it increased the material of the army. The Hon. Marshal seemed to consider that the great object to be gained by an improvement was a decrease of this material; an example of this economy which he illustrated by the case of the substitution of the leather drinking cup for the tin cup hung to the soldier's knapsack, an improvement which enabled the soldier to put his cup in his vest pocket. For this improvement, if I remember right, he said the inventor, who was a common soldier, received at the hands of the Emperor Napoleon I the cross of the Legion of Honor.