e term, however, his health failed,
and he was constrained to relinquish his clerical aims. While in doubts
as to his future he chanced to see the telegraph, and that decided him.
He says: 'I accidentally and without invitation called upon Professor
Morse at the University, and found him with Professors Torrey and
Daubeny in the mineralogical cabinet and lecture-room of Professor Gale,
where Professor Morse was exhibiting to these gentlemen an apparatus
which he called his Electro-Magnetic Telegraph. There were wires
suspended in the room running from one end of it to the other, and
returning many times, making a length of seventeen hundred feet. The
two ends of the wire were connected with an electro-magnet fastened to a
vertical wooden frame. In front of the magnet was its armature, and also
a wooden lever or arm fitted at its extremity to hold a lead-pencil....
I saw this instrument work, and became thoroughly acquainted with
the principle of its operation, and, I may say, struck with the rude
machine, containing, as I believed, the germ of what was destined to
produce great changes in the conditions and relations of mankind. I well
recollect the impression which was then made upon my mind. I rejoiced to
think that I lived in such a day, and my mind contemplated the future
in which so grand and mighty an agent was about to be introduced for the
benefit of the world. Before leaving the room in which I beheld for the
first time this magnificent invention, I asked Professor Morse if he
intended to make an experiment on a more extended line of conductors. He
replied that he did, but that he desired pecuniary assistance to carry
out his plans. I promised him assistance provided he would admit me
into a share of the invention, to which proposition he assented. I then
returned to my boarding-house, locked the door of my room, threw myself
upon the bed, and gave myself up to reflection upon the mighty results
which were certain to follow the introduction of this new agent in
meeting and serving the wants of the world. With the atlas in my hand I
traced the most important lines which would most certainly be erected in
the United States, and calculated their length. The question then rose
in my mind, whether the electro-magnet could be made to work through
the necessary lengths of line, and after much reflection I came to the
conclusion that, provided the magnet would work even at a distance
of eight or ten miles, there could be