e Fates were kind, that Morse was right in saying that the
"delays" would "turn out to be beneficial." And why? Because it needed
all these years of careful thought and experiment on the part of the
inventor to bring his instruments to the perfection necessary to complete
success, and because the period of financial depression, through which
the country was then passing, was unfavorable to an enterprise of this
character. The history of all inventions proves that, no matter how clear
a vision of the future some enthusiasts may have had, the dream was never
actually realized until all the conditions were favorable and the
psychological moment had arrived. Professor Henry showed, in his letter
of February 24, that he realized that some day electricity would be used
as a motive power, but that much remained yet to be discovered and
invented before this could be actually and practically accomplished. So,
too, the conquest of the air remained a dream for centuries until, to use
Professor Henry's words, "science" was "ripe for its application."
Therefore I think we can conclude that, however confident Morse may have
been that his invention could have stood the test of actual commercial
use during those years of discouragement, it heeded the perfection which
he himself gave it during those same years to enable it to prove its
superiority over other methods.

Among the other improvements made by Morse at this time, the following is
mentioned in the letter to Smith of July 16, 1842, just quoted from: "I
have invented a battery which will delight you; it is the most powerful
of its size ever invented, and this part of my telegraphic apparatus the
results of experiments have enabled me to simplify and truly to perfect."

Another most important development of the invention was made in the year
1842. The problem of crossing wide bodies of water had, naturally,
presented itself to the mind of the inventor at an early date, and during
the most of this year he had devoted himself seriously to its solution.
He laboriously insulated about two miles of copper wire with pitch, tar,
and rubber, and, on the evening of October 18, 1842, he carried it, wound
on a reel, to the Battery in New York and hired a row-boat with a man to
row him while he paid out his "cable." Tradition says that it was a
beautiful moonlight night and that the strollers on the Battery were
mystified, and wondered what kind of fish were being trolled for. The
next day t