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The Invention of the Electric Telegraph: Morse

Morse listened attentively to the conversation. "If it is true that a current passes so swiftly through a great length of wire, why could not messages be sent over the wire at any distance?" he inquired. The others agreed that it would be a splendid thing if it could be proven possible.

Then the subject was dropped. But Morse was not a man to forget, and he kept the idea constantly in his mind. Day after day, the ship made its way homeward, while Morse worked in his cabin on plans for sending messages by electricity. Before the voyage was ended, he had made drawings of an electric telegraph, and had devised the Morse alphabet of dots and dashes, the system used to-day the world over in telegraphy. His plans included laying the wires underground, afterwards abandoned in favor of stringing them in the air from pole to pole.

Before he left the ship, he said to some of his fellow-passengers, "I believe it will be possible to send a message around the world some day."

Then he turned to the Captain: "If you ever hear of the telegraph as one of the wonders of the world, remember that it was invented on the Sully." The Captain was more skeptical than the hopeful inventor.

When Morse reached home, he began to work upon his great invention, but progress was slow.

For he had to make a living; he was poor, and had no one to provide money for his experiments. At the end of three years, he had a circuit of seventeen hundred feet of wire, and a wooden clock, by means of which he succeeded in sending sounds from end to end of the wire. But it was not very satisfactory, and those who witnessed its workings were not at all inclined to invest money in the enterprise.

Morse worked hard and neglected his business as an artist. He fell into abject want, and became poorer and poorer. He often went a whole day without food. Still, he kept to his invention, and did not once lose faith. It is of such courage and endurance that success always is made.