per at Kewenaw Point. At Nauvoo, Illinois,
where the Mormons had just erected a temple, their revival of patriarchal
polygamy excited the wrath of the people. Riots broke out June 27. The
Mormon leader, Joseph Smith, and his brother, who had been lodged in jail,
were killed. Brigham Young thenceforth became the leader of the Mormons.

[Sidenote: Morse's telegraph]

[Sidenote: Wells' anaesthetic discovery]

By means of a Congressional grant of $30,000, Samuel B.F. Morse constructed
his first telegraph line over the forty miles between Baltimore and
Washington. The first message, "What hath God wrought?" is still preserved
by the Connecticut Historical Society. Before this Alfred Vail had
perfected his telegraph code of alphabetical signs, with his dry point
reading register and relay key. Now Ezra Cornell contributed his invention
of an inverted cup of glass for insulating live wires. Dr. Horace Wells, a
dentist of Hartford, Connecticut, first employed nitrous oxide gas,
popularly known as laughing gas, in extracting one of his own teeth.

[Sidenote: Death of John Dalton]

In England, Faraday published his first "Experimental Researches in
Electricity." The anonymous publication of "Vestiges of the Natural History
of Creation," containing the first enunciation of Darwin's doctrine of the
origin of species by evolution, was followed by a storm of controversy.
Another subject for controversy was furnished by the invention of the new
tonic system in music (Do re mi fa). Kingsley brought out his "Village
Sermons," while Max Mueller came into prominence by his new edition and
translation of "Hitopadesa," a collection of old Hindu fables. The
necrology of the year in England includes John Dalton, the physicist, and
Sir Francis Burdett, the parliamentarian and popular leader, who did so
much for liberty of speech and of the press. John Dalton, a strangely
original genius, and perhaps the greatest theoretical chemist of his
generation, first came into prominence by showing that water existed in air
as an independent gas. The wonderful theory of atoms, on which the whole
gigantic structure of modern chemistry rests, was the logical outgrowth of
the original conception of this country-bred, self-taught Quaker.

[Sidenote: O'Connell's trial]

[Sidenote: Government monopoly of English railways]

[Sidenote: Y.M.C.A. founded]

A feature of the year was the sensational trial of Daniel O'Connell and his
associates on charges of