entific gentlemen who have seen it; but the machinery
(all which, from its peculiar character, I have been compelled to make
myself) is imperfect, and before it can be perfected I have reason to
fear that other nations will take the hint and rob me both of the credit
and the profit. There are indications of this in the foreign journals
lately received. I have a defender in the 'Journal of Commerce' (which I
send you that you may know what is the progress of the matter), and
doubtless other journals of our country will not allow foreign nations to
take the credit of an invention of such vast importance as they assign to
it, when they learn that it certainly belongs to America.

"There is not a thought in any one of the foreign journals relative to
the Telegraph which I had not expressed nearly five years ago, on my
passage from France, to scientific friends; and when it is considered how
quick a hint flies from mind to mind and is soon past all tracing back to
the original suggester of the hint, it is certainly by no means
improbable that the excitement on the subject in England has its origin
from my giving the details of the plan of my Telegraph to some of the
Englishmen or other fellow-passengers on board the ship, or to some of
the many I have since made acquainted with it during the five years
past."

In this he was mistaken, for the English telegraph of Cooke and
Wheatstone was quite different in principle, using the deflection, by a
current of electricity, of a delicately adjusted needle to point to the
letters of the alphabet. While this was in use in England for a number of
years, it was gradually superseded by the Morse telegraph which proved
its decided superiority. It is also worthy of note that in this letter,
and in all future letters and articles, he, with pardonable pride, uses a
capital T in speaking of his Telegraph.

One of the most difficult of the problems which confront the historian
who sincerely wishes to deal dispassionately with his subject is justly
to apportion the credit which must be given to different workers in the
same field of endeavor, and especially in that of invention; for every
invention is but an improvement on something which has gone before. The
sail-boat was an advance on the rude dugout propelled by paddles. The
first clumsy steamboat seemed a marvel to those who had known no other
propulsive power than that of the wind or the oar. The horse-drawn
vehicle succeeded the litter