l parts of his invention
into a working whole. In 1835, however, his reputation as an historical
painter, and the esteem in which he was held as a man of culture
and refinement, led to his appointment as the first Professor of the
Literature of the Arts of Design in the newly founded University of the
city of New York. In the month of July he took up his quarters in the
new buildings of the University at Washington Square, and was henceforth
able to devote more time to his apparatus. The same year Professor
Daniell, of King's College, London, brought out his constant-current
battery, which befriended Morse in his experiments, as it afterwards did
Cooke and Wheatstone, Hitherto the voltaic battery had been a source of
trouble, owing to the current becoming weak as the battery was kept in
action.

The length of line through which Morse could work his apparatus was
an important point to be determined, for it was known that the current
grows feebler in proportion to the resistance of the wire it traverses.
Morse saw a way out of the difficulty, as Davy, Cooke, and Wheatstone
did, by the device known as the relay. Were the current too weak to
effect the marking of a message, it might nevertheless be sufficiently
strong to open and close the circuit of a local battery which would
print the signals. Such relays and local batteries, fixed at intervals
along the line, as post-horses on a turnpike, would convey the message
to an immense distance. 'If I can succeed in working a magnet ten
miles,' said Morse,'I can go round the globe. It matters not how
delicate the movement may be.'

According to his own statement, he devised the relay in 1836 or earlier;
but it was not until the beginning of 1837 that he explained the device,
and showed the working of his apparatus to his friend, Mr. Leonard D.
Gale, Professor of Chemistry in the University. This gentleman took
a lively interest in the apparatus, and proved a generous ally of the
inventor. Until then Morse had only tried his recorder on a few yards
of wire, the battery was a single pair of plates, and the electro-magnet
was of the elementary sort employed by Moll, and illustrated in the
older books. The artist, indeed, was very ignorant of what had been done
by other electricians; and Professor Gale was able to enlighten him.
When Gale acquainted him with some results in telegraphing obtained by
Mr. Barlow, he said he was not aware that anyone had even conceived
the notion of u