and promising idea came into being in his brain.

"Why," he exclaimed, with much ardor of manner, "if that is
so, and the presence of electricity can be made visible in
any desired part of the circuit, I see no reason why
intelligence should not be transmitted instantaneously by
electricity."

"How convenient it would be if we could send news in that
manner!" chimed in one of the passengers.

"Why can't we?" exclaimed Morse.

Why not, indeed? The idea probably died in the minds of most
of the persons present within five minutes. But Samuel Morse
was not one of the men who let ideas die. This one haunted
him day and night. He thought of it and dreamed of it. In
those days of deliberate travel time hung heavily on the
hands of transatlantic passengers, despite the partial
diversions of eating and sleeping. The ocean grew
monotonous, the vessel monotonous, the passengers
monotonous, everything monotonous except that idea, and that
grew and spread till its fibres filled every nook and cranny
of the inventive brain that had taken it in to bed and
board.

Morse had abundance of the native Yankee faculty of
invention. To do, had been plain enough from the start. How
to do, was the question to be solved. But before the Sully
steamed into New York harbor the solution had been reached.
In the mind of the inventor, and in graphic words and
drawings on paper, were laid down the leading features of
that telegraphic method which is used to-day in the great
majority of the telegraph lines of the world.

An alphabet of dots and marks, a revolving ribbon of paper
to receive this alphabet, a method of enclosing the wires in
tubes which were to be buried underground, were the leading
features of the device as first thought of. The last
conception was quickly followed by that of supporting the
wires in the air, but Morse clung to his original fancy for
burying them,--a fancy which, it may here be said, is coming
again into vogue in these latter days, so far as cities are
concerned.

It is not meant to be implied that the idea of sending news
by electricity was original with Morse. Others had had it
before him. More than half a century before, Dr. Franklin
and some friends had stretched a wire across the Schuylkill
River and killed a turkey on the other side by electricity.
As they ate this turkey, it is quite possible that they
imbibed with it the idea of making this marvellous agent do
other work than killing fowl for dinne