Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals: In Two Volumes, Volume IIMorse, Samuel Finley Breese
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Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals: In Two Volumes, Volume II
Morse, Samuel Finley Breese
Morse, Samuel Finley Breese, 1791-1872; Telegraph
"Morse's machine was complete in all its parts and operated perfectly
through a circuit of some forty feet, but there was not sufficient force
to send messages to a distance. At this time I was a lecturer on
chemistry, and from necessity was acquainted with all kinds of galvanic
batteries, and knew that a battery of one or a few cups generates a large
quantity of electricity capable of producing heat, etc., but not of
projecting electricity to a great distance, and that, to accomplish this,
a battery of many cups is necessary. It was, therefore, evident to me
that the one large cup-battery of Morse should be made into ten or
fifteen smaller ones to make it a battery of intensity so as to project
the electric fluid.... Accordingly I substituted the battery of many cups
for the battery of one cup. The remaining defect in the Morse machine, as
first seen by me, was that the coil of wire around the poles of the
electro-magnet consisted of but a few turns only, while, to give the
greatest projectile power, the number of turns should be increased from
tens to hundreds, as shown by Professor Henry in his paper published in
the 'American Journal of Science,' 1831.... After substituting the
battery of twenty cups for that of a single cup, we added some hundred or
more turns to the coil of wire around the poles of the magnet and sent a
message through two hundred feet of conductors, then through one thousand
feet, and then through ten miles of wire arranged on reels in my own
lecture-room in the New York University in the presence of friends."
This was a most important step in hastening the reduction of the
invention to a practical, workable basis and I wish here to bear
testimony to the great services of Professor Henry in making this
possible. His valuable discoveries were freely given to the world with no
attempt on his part to patent them, which is, perhaps, to be regretted,
but much more is it to be deplored that, in, the litigation which ensued
a few years later, Morse and Henry were drawn into a controversy,
fostered and fomented by others for their own pecuniary benefit, which
involved the honor and veracity of both of these distinguished men. Both
were men of the greatest sensitiveness, proud and jealous of their own
integrity, and the breach once made was never healed. Of the rights and
wrongs of this controversy I may have occasion later on to treat more in
detail, although I should much prefer to dismiss it with the
acknowledgment that there was much to deplore in what was said and
written by Morse, although he sincerely believed himself to be in the
right, and much to regret in some of the statements and actions of Henry.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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