to take portraits, causing a glass
building to be constructed for that purpose on the roof of the
University. As our experiments had caused us considerable expense, we
made a charge to those who sat for us to defray this expense. Professor
Draper's other duties calling him away from the experiments, except as to
their bearing on some philosophical investigations which he pursued with
great ingenuity and success, I was left to pursue the artistic results of
the process, as more in accordance with my profession. My expenses had
been great, and for some time, five or six months, I pursued the taking
of portraits by the Daguerreotype as a means of reimbursing these
expenses. After this object had been attained, I abandoned the practice
to give my exclusive attention to the Telegraph, which required all my
time."

Before leaving the subject of the Daguerreotype, in which, as I have
shown, Morse was a pioneer in this country, it will be interesting to
note that he took the first group photograph of a college class. This was
of the surviving members of his own class of 1810, who returned to New
Haven for their thirtieth reunion in 1840.

It was not until August of the year 1839 that definite news of the
failure of the Russian agreement was received, and Morse, in a letter to
Smith, of August 12, comments on this and on another serious blow to his
hopes:--

"I received yours of the 2d inst., and the paper accompanying it
containing the notice of Mr. Chamberlain. I had previously been apprised
that my forebodings were true in regard to his fate.... Our enterprise
abroad is destined to give us anxiety, if not to end in disappointment.

"I have just received a letter from M. Amyot, who was to have been my
companion to Russia, and learn from him the unwelcome news that the
Emperor has decided against the Telegraph.... The Emperor's objections
are, it seems, that 'malevolence can easily interrupt the communication.'
M. Amyot scouts the idea, and writes that he refuted the objection to the
satisfaction of the Baron, who, indeed, did not need the refutation for
himself, for the whole matter was fully discussed between us when in
Paris. The Baron, I should judge from the tone of M. Amyot's letter, was
much disappointed, yet, as a faithful and obedient subject of one whose
nay is nay, he will be cautious in so expressing himself as to be
self-committed.

"Thus, my dear sir, prospects abroad look dark. I turn with some faint
hope t