"I find it a most arduous and tedious process to adjust the specification. I have been engaged steadily for three days with Mr. S., and have not yet got half through, but there is one consolation, when done it will be well done. The drawings, I find on enquiry, would cost you from forty to fifty dollars if procured from the draughtsman about the Patent Office. I have, therefore, determined to do them myself and save you that sum." The portrule, referred to above, was a device for sending automatically messages which were recorded permanently on the tape at the other end of the line. It worked well enough, but it was soon superseded by the key manipulated by hand, as this was much simpler and the dots and dashes could be sent more rapidly. It is curious to note, however, that down to the present day inventors have been busy in an effort to devise some mechanism by which messages could be sent automatically, and consequently more rapidly than by hand, which was Morse's original idea, but, to the best of my knowledge, no satisfactory solution of the problem has yet been found. Morse was now preparing to go to Europe with Smith to endeavor to secure patents abroad, and, while he had put in his application for a patent in this country, he requested that the issuing of it should be held back until his return, so that a publication on this side should not injure his chances abroad. All the partners were working under high pressure along their several lines to get everything in readiness for a successful exhibition of the telegraph in Europe. Vail sent a long letter to Morse on April 18, detailing some of the difficulties which he was encountering, and Morse answered on the 24th:-- "I write in greatest haste, just to say that the boxes have safely arrived, and we shall proceed immediately to examine into the difficulties which have troubled you, but about which we apprehend no serious issue.... "If you can possibly get the circular portrule completed before we go it will be a great convenience, not to say an indispensable matter, for I have just learned so much of Wheatstone's Telegraph as to be pretty well persuaded that my superiority over him will be made evident more by the rapidity with which I can make the portrule work than in almost any other particular." At last every detail had been attended to, and in a postscript to a letter of April 28 he says: "We sail on the 16th of May for Liverpool in the ship Europe, so I think you will have time to complete circular portrule. Try, won't you?" CHAPTER XXV JUNE, 1838--JANUARY 21, 1839