Abstract
SAMUEL F. B. MORSE, of Charlestown, Massachusetts, inventor of the Morse electro-magnetic recording telegraph, was born on April 27, 1791. He died a little more than half a century ago. That Faraday was born also in the same year is an interesting coincidence. The latter, lecturing at the Royal Institution in 1858, said: “Thoughts of an electric telegraph came over the minds of those who had been instructed in the nature of electricity, as soon as the conduction of that power through metals was known.” Prof. Morse himself declared that he had “a distinct recollection of the manner, the place, and moment when the thought of making an electric wire the means of communicating intelligence came into my mind and was uttered.” He was referring to the year 1832, and specially recalling an experience when a passenger on the Sully, a boat plying between Havre and New York. The construction and practicability of apparatus for the purpose in view occupied many anxious years. Morse held that such an invention would mark an era in human civilisation and contribute to the happiness of millions. For long he worked in penury. At last, in March 1843, Congress voted 30,000 dollars for definite experimental projects in connexion with the invention. In May, the following year, success in actual service was achieved. The message, “What hath God wrought,” was sent from the Capitol at Washington to Baltimore, Morse operating the transmitter. It is of interest to add that at the Oxford meeting of the British Association in 1847, Sir Robert Inglis, the president, referred to the rapid progress of telegraphy in the United States as the immediate outcome of Morse's work, and alluded with regret to the circumstance that in England this great discovery had been, so far, inadequately adopted.
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Current Topics and Events. Nature 115, 613–616 (1925). https://doi.org/10.1038/115613a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/115613a0