tten down in a permanent manner by characters at a distance
from the writer. He took from his pocket and showed from his sketch-book,
in which he had drawn them, the kind of characters he proposed to use.
These characters were dots and spaces representing the ten digits or
numerals, and in the book were sketched other parts of his
electro-magnetic machinery and apparatus, actually drawn out in his
sketch-book."

The other brother, Sidney, also bore testimony:--

"He was full of the subject of the telegraph during the walk from the
ship, and for some days afterwards could scarcely speak about anything
else. He expressed himself anxious to make apparatus and try experiments
for which he had no materials or facilities on shipboard. In the course
of a few days after his arrival he made a kind of cogged or saw-toothed
type, the object of which I understood was to regulate the interruptions
of the electric current, so as to enable him to make dots, and regulate
the length of marks or spaces on the paper upon which the information
transmitted by his telegraph was to be recorded.

"He proposed at that time a single circuit of wire, and only a single
circuit, and letters, words, and phrases were to be indicated by
numerals, and these numerals were to be indicated by dots and other marks
and spaces on paper. It seemed to me that, as wire was cheap, it would be
better to have twenty-four wires, each wire representing a letter of the
alphabet, but my brother always insisted upon the superior advantages of
his single circuit."

Thus we see that Morse, from the very beginning, and from intuition, or
inspiration, or whatever you please, was insistent on one of the points
which differentiated his invention from all others in the same field,
namely, its simplicity, and it was this feature which eventually won for
it a universal adoption. But, simple as it was, it still required much
elaboration in order to bring it to perfection, for as yet it was but an
idea roughly sketched on paper; the appliances to put this idea to a
practical test had yet to be devised and made, and Morse now entered upon
the most trying period of his career. His three years in Europe, while
they had been enjoyed to the full and had enabled him to perfect himself
in his art, had not yielded him large financial returns; he had not
expected that they would, but based his hopes on increased patronage
after his return. He was entirely dependent on his brush for the