is no
opposition, but it may spring up unexpectedly and defeat all....

"I find Dr. Fisher a great help. He is acquainted with a great many of
the members, and he is round among them and creating an interest for the
Telegraph. Mr. Smith has not yet made his appearance, and, if he does not
come soon, everything will be accomplished without him. My associate
proprietors, indeed, are at present broken reeds, yet I am aware they are
disabled in various ways from helping me, and I ought to remember that
their help in the commencement of the enterprise was essential in putting
the Telegraph into the position it now is [in]; therefore, although they
give me now no aid, it is not from unwillingness but from inability, and
I shall not grudge them their proportion of its profits, nor do I believe
they will be unwilling to reimburse me my expenses, should the Telegraph
eventually be purchased by the Government.

"Mr. Ferris, our representative, is very much interested in understanding
the scientific principles on which my Telegraph is based, and has exerted
himself very strongly in my behalf; so has Mr. Boardman, and, in a
special manner, Dr. Aycrigg, of New Jersey, the latter of whom is
determined the bill shall pass by acclamation. Mr. Huntington, of the
Senate, Mr. Woodbury and Mr. Wright are also very strongly friendly to
the Telegraph."

This letter, to the best of my knowledge, has never before been
published, and yet it contains statements of the utmost interest. The
discovery of duplex telegraphy, or the possibility of sending two or more
messages over the same wire at the same time has been credited by various
authorities to different persons; by some to Moses G. Farmer in 1852, by
others to Gintl, of Vienna, in 1853, or to Frischen or Siemens and Halske
in 1854. Yet we see from this letter that Morse and his assistant Dr.
Fisher not only made the discovery ten years earlier, in 1842, but
demonstrated its practicability to the scientists and others in
Washington at that date. Why this fact should have been lost sight of I
cannot tell, but I am glad to be able to bring forward the proof of the
paternity of this brilliant discovery even at this late day.

Still another scientific principle was established by Morse at this early
period, as we learn from this letter, and that is the possibility of
wireless telegraphy; but, as he has been generally credited with the
first suggestion of what has now become one of the greates