ess.

As to English electric telegraphs, the telegraph of Wheatstone and Cooke,
called the Magnetic Needle Telegraph, inefficient as it is, was invented
five years after mine, and the printing telegraph, so-called (the title
to the invention of which is litigated by Wheatstone and Bain) was
invented seven years after mine.

So much for my _re_discovering what was previously known in England.

As to the discovery that electricity may be made to cross the water
without wire conductors, above, through, or beneath the water, the very
reference by the editor to another number of the magazine, and to the
experiments of Cooke, or rather Steinheil, and of Bain, shows that the
editor is wholly ignorant of the nature of my experiment. I have in
detail the experiments of Bain and Wheatstone. They were merely in effect
repetitions of the experiments of Steinheil. Their object was to show
that the earth or water can be made one half of the circuit in conducting
electricity, a fact proved by Franklin with ordinary electricity in the
last century, and by Professor Steinheil, of Munich, with magnetic
electricity in 1837. Mr. Bain, and after him Mr. Wheatstone, in England
repeated, or (to use the English editor's phrase) rediscovered the same
fact in 1841. But what have these experiments, in which _one wire_ is
carried across the river, to do with mine _which dispenses with wires
altogether_ across the river? I challenge the proof that such an
experiment has ever been tried in Europe, unless it be since the
publication of my results.

The year 1844 was drawing to a close and Congress still was dilatory.
Morse hated to abandon his cherished dream of government ownership, and,
while carrying on negotiations with private parties in order to protect
himself, he still hoped that Congress would at last see the light. He
writes to his brother from Washington on December 30:--

"Telegraph matters look exceedingly encouraging, not only for the United
States but for Europe. I have just got a letter from a special agent of
the French Government, sent to Boston by the Minister of Foreign Affairs,
in which he says that he has seen mine and 'is convinced of its
superiority,' and wishes all information concerning it, adding: 'I
consider it my duty to make a special report on your admirable
invention.'"

And on January 18, 1845, he writes:--

"I am well, but anxiously waiting the action of Congress on the bill for
extension of Telegraph. Texas