I remember perfectly well the first galvanic battery I ever saw, for it was of my own construction. It is now nearly fifty years ago, and yet it seems but yesterday--such is the flight of time. I related to you in another chapter how I made a voltaic battery--or pile, as it was called--by cutting up my mother's boiler and her stove-zinc, and the domestic incident that followed. Well, a little later I made a real galvanic battery as follows: I lived in the country and far from town or city, and my facilities were extremely limited, so that I pursued my scientific investigations under great difficulties. My only text-book was an old Comstock's Philosophy. In the book was a crude cut of a Morse register and a short description of its construction, including the battery. I determined to make a register, and I did. It was all constructed of wood except the magnet and its armature and the embossing-point, which latter was made of the end of a nail. The thing that seemed out of reach was the electromagnet. I had no money; and there was no one that believed I could do it, and if I could "what good would come of it?" I made friends with a blacksmith by keeping flies off a horse while he nailed the shoes on, and "blowing the bellows" and occasionally using the "sledge" for him. When I thought the obligation had accumulated a sufficient "voltage" (to express it electrically) I communicated to the blacksmith the situation and what I wanted. The good-natured old fellow was not long in bending up a U magnet of soft iron and forging out an armature. The next step was to wind the U with insulated wire. The only thing that I had ever seen of the kind was an iron wire called "bonnet" wire that was wrapped with cotton thread. This, however, was not available, so I captured a piece of brass bell-wire and wound strips of cotton cloth around it for insulation--and in that way completed the magnet. Now everything was ready but the battery. I went at its construction with a feeling almost akin to awe, for I could not believe that it would do as described in the book. I procured a candy-jar from the grocer and found some pieces of sheet zinc and copper. These I rolled together into loose spirals and placed one inside the other so that they would not touch, when I was ready for the solution. The druggist trusted me for a half pound of "blue vitriol," and I put it into my battery and filled it with water. I waited awhile for it to dissolve, and then connected my magnet in circuit, when--to my astonishment and delight--it would lift a pound or more. It was a great triumph. I never have had one since that gave me the same satisfaction. But I had my triumph all to myself. I was still the same "tinker" (a name I had long carried), and a nuisance to be endured but not encouraged.