given that that mode was not perfectly successful. I did not
feel, therefore, at liberty to expend the public moneys in useless
experiments on a plan which seemed to be already settled as effective in
England. Hence I fixed upon this mode as one supposed to be the best. It
prosecuted till the winter of 1843-44. It was abandoned, among other
reasons, in consequence of ascertaining that, in the process of inserting
the wire into the leaden tubes (which was at the moment of forming the
tube from the lead at melting heat), the insulating covering of the wires
had become charred, at various and numerous points of the line, to such
an extent that greater delay and expense would be necessary to repair the
damage than to put the wire on posts.

"In my letter to the Secretary of the Treasury, of September 27, 1837,
one of the modes of laying the conductors for the Telegraph was the
present almost universal one of extending them on posts set about two
hundred feet apart. This mode was adopted with success."

The sentence in the letter of September 27, 1837, just referred to, reads
as follows: "If the circuit is laid through the air, the first cost
would, doubtless, be much lessened. Stout spars, of some thirty feet in
height, well planted in the ground and placed about three hundred and
fifty feet apart, would in this case be required, along the tops of which
the circuit might be stretched."

A rough drawing of this plan also appears in the 1832 sketch-book.

It would seem, from a voluminous correspondence, that Professor Fisher
was responsible for the failure of the underground system, inasmuch as he
did not properly test the wires after they had been inserted in the lead
pipe. Carelessness of this sort Morse could never brook, and he was
reluctantly compelled to dispense with the services of one who had been
of great use to him previously. He refers to this in a letter to his
brother Sidney of December 16, 1843:--

"The season is against all my operations, and I expect to resume in the
spring. I have difficulties and trouble in my work, but none of a nature
as yet to discourage; they arise from neglect and unfaithfulness (_inter
nos_) on the part of Fisher, whom I shall probably dismiss, although on
many accounts I shall do it reluctantly. I shall give him an opportunity
to excuse himself, if he ever gets here. I have been expecting both him
and Gale for three weeks, and written, but without bringing either of
them. They m