among others, and one gentleman narrated the experiments he had lately witnessed, "the object of which was to prove how readily the electric spark emanated from the magnet, and how quickly it could be disseminated." The party were sitting upon the deck when this was told, and one by one, as evening drew on, they withdrew to the cabin, or to their staterooms. At last the shadows had deepened into night, but one still form had not moved, or changed its position. The moments multiplied themselves into hours, and still he sat there, studying and working on this one great problem, that he had never seen before. When the moon rose up in the midnight sky and silvered his locks as if with age, he looked out over the broad waters with a new light in his eyethe light of a new life and a new purpose. In his lonely and silent vigil he had traced out the path that should lead him to fame and renown; he had planted seeds in the past which, knowing now how to water and tend them, would yet bring him an abundant harvest; yea, he had builded better than he knew. He had found the solution of a mystery that had haunted him. No more art for him; no more days of dreaming; no more coquetting with the coy godess who held her laurels too high for him to reach with brush and canvas. Now she would come and offer them to him, and plead his acceptance of the gift she so long withheld. She would shower her treasures over him whether he would or no. Every one knows Mr. Morse was very practical, and he lost no time in thinking, but set at once to work; and before the end of the voyage he had wrought out the idea, and completed the drawings for the electric telegraph, also the "electro-magnetic and recording telegraph, substantially and essentially as it now exists." This was in 1832, but he did not complete the first instrument until three or four years later. This, like every embodiment of the ideal, was far from being equal to the invention, as he still held it fixed upon the retina of his mind. He made repeated experiments and improvements, and succeeded in sending messages over the wire half a mile or more.

In 1840 he obtained his patent, after long and vexatious delays. Little confidence was felt, even amongst scientific men, that the invention would ever be brought into common use, or be of any practical use in long distances; but his own faith in it was boundless, and he petitioned the Government for an appropriation to

enable him to put up an experimental line from Baltimore to Washington; for Morse, like many another genius, had more brains than money, and more talents than influence. Considerable interest was felt in the subject, both by Congress, and throughout the country; and scientific men, moved by his own enthusiasm and earnestness, began to ask if really there might not be something in it after all.

In 1838 Morse went to Europe to try to interest the nations over the sea to seek abroad that aid and encouragement he had failed to meet at home. Here, again, he was disappointed, and returned to America weary, worn, disgusted, saddened and grieved by his disappointment.

In 1842 he again laid the subject of his telegraph before Congress, and again asked the same aid he had before. His pecuniary circumstances had not improved, and he was unable to do anything himself unable to afford even the expense of remaining in Washington during the session; and he waited almost hopelessly as day after day passed and nothing was done; and his patience waned as did his small store of money, and grew rapidly but not "beautifully less." Up to the last day, and the last night of the session nothing had been done for it, and at a late hour of the night he returned to his hotel, packed his valise and made all preparation to go to New York the next day. A sleepless night brought him no rest, and a gloomy, morbid, bitter sense of wrong, neglect and injustice still rankled in his mind; his heart throbbed wearily with its weight of pain, as he sat over his coffee and morning papers at the breakfast which he could not swallow. His eye passed listlessly over the items, while his thoughts wandered aimlessly away. So he had looked twice at a paragraph, and dreamily looked at it the third time, before he realized that it was really himself and his own bill; and that it announced that at the very last moment it had passed, and that thirty thousand dollars had been appropriated to his project. He could not believe his own senses; he sought his hat, and forgetting his breakfast, forgetting his weariness, he rushed with toilet half made to the capitol, to learn if it was true. It is said that when he was convinced that the hour of victory was at hand -that the struggle and pain were past, and that the morning of the dense dark night was dawning, the overstrained nerves gave

way, and the strength that had supported him in his despair failed him in his triumph, and he sat down and wept like a child, and like one of old, "he recked not that men saw." Work on the experimental line was at once begun, and on the 25th of July, 1844, it was completed. The trial was made before all the government officials and a large number of invited guests. Prof. Morse seated himself at the instrument, and with a sense of triumph that was pardonable, since Cæsar never won a victory like this, and with his heart throbbing wildly to the songs fame sung in the distance, for he knew that wealth and honor would crown him at last-ah! at last!-sent his first message to Baltimore, and received an immediate answer. For two hours messages were sent and answers received with a rapidity which astonished every one but Morse; and while the spectators were wild with delight, this man, whose whole future hung upon the experiment; this man, who had suffered tortures of fear and suspense; who had staked everything upon the success of his invention, and who had scarcely a dollar in his pocket, sat, apparently calm and unmoved. Let the future bring him what it would, there could never be in her treasure house another hour of such unmixed joy, and no glory like the glory of that day.

Offers for the use of his invention flowed in upon him, and telegraph companies were organized all over the country. In fifteen, years after that first trial morning, it is estimated that there were 150,000 miles in operation; and his system is adopted all over the globe. His patent brought him a speedy and immense fortune, and those countries that were most tardy to do him justice were ready enough to force their acknowledgments of his genius upon him; it is said that he has received more marks of honorable consideration from the crowned heads of Europe than has fallen to the lot of any other inventor. From Napoleon III. he received the Cross of Chevalier of the Legion of Honor; from the King of Denmark, the Cross of Knight of Danebrog; from the King of Prussia, a gold medal; from the Sultan of Turkey, the decoration of Nishaun Iftichar in diamonds, and from the Queen Isabella of Spain, the Cross of Knight Commander of the order of Isabella. In 1859, at the suggestion of Napoleon III., representatives from the various European powers met to decide upon an appropriate token from all the nations. France,

Turkey, Russia, Sweden, Holland, Austria, Belgium, and Sardinia, Tuscany, and the Holy Land were represented, and presented, in the name of the united governments, the sum of 400,000 francs, as a token of their appreciation of his labors.

Mr. Morse was also the first experimenter with, and inventor of, the submarine telegraph, and was with Cyrus W. Field from the first to the last of that mighty enterprise that enabled two worlds, wide sundered by a waste of waters as drear and wild as that over which Noah's dove looked in vain for a resting place, to bid defiance to the wrath of Neptune, and, sitting each upon the soil of home, speak as friend to friend.

Prof. Morse died in April, 1872, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Russia to India, the cities and nations have mourned for the world's benefactor.

ELIAS HOWE, JR.

HERE is not, in all the length and breadth of our land, a tired and over-worked mother, groaning under the accumulation of household sewing which the fingers, ready and skillful though they be, can not find or make time to do, and whose over-burdened heart and brain have been relieved and made to sing with joy by the possession of the "Household Fairy," who will not be pleased to know something of its inventor. For, though the clarion voice of fame may boast of our telegraphs over land and through ocean, of our magnificent steam printing presses, of engines which are more wonderful than stories of Arabian Nights' Entertainments; may talk of fire arms, whose deadly work upon the battle-field is more sure and fatal than that of the pestilence which wasteth at noon-day; may sing of the sculptor's or the poet's art and tell of those who have made their names im