and. The boat made
several trips on the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers, but owing to
repeated accidents to her machinery, and the want of funds and
competent mechanics for the necessary repairs, she was abandoned. In
1807, Robert Fulton, also of Pennsylvania, made his first experimental
trip on the Hudson River, with complete success. To this distinguished
and ingenious American justly belongs the honor of having brought
navigation by steam to a state of perfection. In 1819, the first
steamship crossed the Atlantic from Savannah to Liverpool; and in
1838, a regular communication by steamship was established between
Great Britain and the United States. Since that period, ocean
navigation by steam-vessels has made rapid progress, and, at the
present time, numbers of steamers connect our various seaports with
those of other nations, and with each other.

What is the Electro-Magnetic Telegraph?

An instrument, or apparatus, by means of which intelligence is
conveyed to any distance with the velocity of lightning. The electric
fluid, when an excess has accumulated in one place, always seeks to
transfer itself to another, until an equilibrium of its distribution
is fully restored. Consequently, when two places are connected by
means of a good conductor of electricity, as, for instance, the
telegraphic wire; the fluid generated by a galvanic battery, if the
communication be rendered complete, instantaneously traverses the
whole extent of the wire, and charges, at the distant station, an
electro-magnet; this attracts one end of a lever, and draws it
downward, while the other extremity is thrown up, and, by means of a
style, marks a slip of paper, which is steadily wound off from a
roller by the aid of clock-work. If the communication is immediately
broken, only one wave of electricity passes over, and a _dot_ is made
upon the paper; if kept up, a _line_ is marked. These dots and lines
are made to represent the letters of the alphabet, so that an operator
employed for the purpose can easily read the message which is
transmitted.--The Electro-Magnetic Telegraph was first introduced upon
a line between Baltimore and Washington, by Professor Morse, in 1844;
at the present time, it is in successful operation between nearly all
the important cities and towns of the United States and of Europe.

An _Electro-Magnet_ is a piece of soft iron, rendered
temporarily magnetic by being placed within a coil of wire
through