ished, and the stairways
were in such an embryonic state that he could not expect sitters to
attempt their perilous ascent. This enforced leisure gave him the chance
he had long desired and he threw himself heart and soul into his
electrical experiments. Writing of this period in later years he thus
records his struggles:--

[Illustration: FIRST TELEGRAPH INSTRUMENT, 1837
Now in the National Museum, Washington]

"There I immediately commenced, with very limited means, to experiment
upon my invention. My first instrument was made up of an old picture or
canvas frame fastened to a table; the wheels of an old wooden clock moved
by a weight to carry the paper forward; three wooden drums, upon one of
which the paper was wound and passed over the other two; a wooden
pendulum, suspended to the top piece of the picture or stretching-frame,
and vibrating across the paper as it passes over the centre wooden drum;
a pencil at the lower end of the pendulum in contact with the paper; an
electro-magnet fastened to a shelf across the picture or stretching
frame, opposite to an armature made fast to the pendulum; a type rule and
type, for breaking the circuit, resting on an endless band composed of
carpet-binding; which passed over two wooden rollers, moved by a wooden
crank, and carried forward by points projecting from the bottom of the
rule downward into the carpet-binding; a lever, with a small weight on
the upper side, and a tooth projecting downward at one end, operated on
by the type, and a metallic fork, also projecting downward, over two
mercury cups; and a short circuit of wire embracing the helices of the
electro-magnet connected with the positive and negative poles of the
battery and terminating in the mercury cups."

This first rude instrument was carefully preserved by the inventor, and
is now in the Morse case in the National Museum at Washington. A
reproduction of it is here given.

I shall omit certain technical details in the inventor's account of this
first instrument, but I wish to call attention to his ingenuity in
adapting the means at his disposal to the end desired. Much capital has
been made, by those who opposed his claims, out of the fact that this
primitive apparatus could only produce a V-shaped mark, thus--

__ __ _
\/|__| |/\/ |/\/|__/

--and not a dot and a dash, which they insist was of later introduction
and by another hand. But a reference to the sketches made on board the
Su