brain of civilization and the steam engine is its heart, electric wires are its nervou

nals, cures the sick, and scatters darkness with it; makes it whirl him through space; compels it to bear his whisper through hundreds of miles, and can make it fly around the

at the day may bring no one can imagine. Americans have given the world many of the greatest inventions, and in the field of electricity they have given it nearly everything of value. It is to American ingenuity that civilization is indebted for the electrical te

y. In the same way, by rubbing amber with silk, Thales, a Greek philosopher who lived in the sixth century before Christ, is thought to have discovered electricity. The Greek word for amber is elektron. Because of the suppo

he term galvanic, used in connection with electricity, comes from the name of this investigator. Galvani's experiments suggested the electric battery to Volta, another Italian scientist who was born in 1745. The electrical word voltaic is in honor of Volta. In 1752 Benjamin Franklin flew his kite into the thunderstorm and proved that lightning is electricity. A little later Hans C

h. Tele is a Greek adverb meaning "afar." Graph comes from the G

ere appeared in the Scots Magazine an article signed "C. M." (since ascertained to have been Charles Morrison, of Greenock in Scotland) setting forth a fairly clear idea of the electric telegraph. J

ip was Charles T. Jackson, who had been studying electricity in Paris. Jackson told Morse of some experiments in electricity which the French had been making, and remarked that it would be a good thing if news could be transmitted through long distances by electricity. Morse replied, "Why can't it be done?" From that hour he gave his time and energy to the invention of the electric telegraph. Du

ember 25, 1807. He was a son of Stephen Vail,

apparatus was exhibited. He was much impressed with it. Morse needed money, and Alfred Vail's father had it. Morse was invited to the home of the Vails in Speedwell, where the matter of the invention was talked over. The sum of two thous

assist him. As secrecy was required for the work, the room was kept locked. For several months Vail and Baxter occupied together the locked room, sharing each other's confidence and each othe

he other. After a short explanation had been made to him, he wrote on a piece of paper, "A patient waiter is no loser." He then said to his son, "If you can send this, and Mr. Morse can read

F. B.

e which he proposed to build between Washington and Baltimore. In May, 1838, he went to Europe seeking aid. The governments there refused him funds or patents. In May, 1839, he returned to the Un

k for its passage in the Senate was not bright. One Senator who was favorable to the bill advised Morse to "give it up, return home, and think no more of it." The bill had been made the object of opposition and ridicule; one prominent official, to show his contempt for the project, proposed that half the amount asked for should be used in mesmeric experiments. Morse, belie

ached Annapolis Junction, twenty-two miles from Was

President. It was arranged between Morse and Vail that the latter should obtain from the passengers upon the afternoon train from Baltimore to Washingto

. This information he at once dispatched to Morse, with whom was gathered a number of prominent men who had been invited to be present. Morse sat awaiting the prearranged signal from Vail, when suddenly there came from the i

ing that information has just left Annapolis Junction for Washington, and Mr. Vail has telegraphed me the ticket nominated

asy enough for you to guess that Clay is at the head

ail has sent to me from Annapolis Junction, where he had the news fi

ong before the train reached Washington the newsboys-enterprising even in those days-had their 'extras' upon the streets, their

Frelinghuysen,' and saw in cold type before their very eyes the information which they supposed was exclusively their own, but which had preceded them 'by telegraph.' They had asked Mr. Vail

Message by

e next day, May 24, 1844, Morse from Washington sent to Vail at Baltimore t

r the experiment, and was the first to convey to Morse the news that the bill had passed. Morse thereupon gave Miss Ellsworth his promise that the first message to pass over the line should be dictated by he

chievement. Foreign nations bestowed upon him honors and medals, and in August, 1858, a convention of European powers called by Napoleon III at Paris gave Morse four hundred thousand francs (about $80,000) as a testimonial of his services to civilization. In October, 1842, he laid the first sub-marine t

alphabet really belongs to Vail; Morse had devised a somewhat complicated system, but Vail invented the dots and dashes. He discovered that e and t are the most frequently used letters. He denoted

l operation of the electric telegraph by discovering that the earth could take the place o

a time. Now several messages may be transmitted in op

ments to prove his theory that the electric current readily passes through any substance, and when once started in a given direction follows a direct course without the aid of a conductor. Marconi made the first practical demonstration of wireless telegraphy in 1896. In March, 1899, he sent a wireless message across the English channel from France to England

a position in a business house in New York City at a salary of fifty dollars a year. He subsequently founded a prosperous business in the manufacture and sale of paper. In 1854 Mr. Field's attention was directed to an attempt to lay an electric cable at Newfoundland, which had failed for want of funds. The idea of lay

ored and a vast tableland was discovered stretching from Newfoundland to Ireland. Field went to England, where he had little difficulty in organizing a company, and work was then begun on the construction of a new cable. Next he laid his enterprise before Congress, and asked for money. An appropriation bill was finally passed in the Senate by a majority of one, and

ged his aid. The loss of three hundred and thirty-five miles of cable was the loss of half a million dollars. Field came back to America and secured from the Secretary of the Navy the vessels needed for another trial. On June 10, 1858, the United States steam frigate Niagara, then the largest in the world, and the British ship Agam

cely any one looked for success. Field was the only man who kept up courage through this trying period. On August 5, 1858, he telegraphed the safe arrival of the ship at Newfoundland. The shore ends of the cable were

s W.

National salutes were fired; processions were formed; there was an address by the mayor

ine days attempts were made, in two and a half miles of water, to grapple the cable, splice it, and continue the work of laying it. Three times the cable was grappled, but the apparatus on the ship was not strong enough to hoist it aboard. Still Field never faltered. Another British company was formed and another cable was constructed. The Great Eastern was again loaded and on July 13, a Fri

e minister of Great Britain declared that only the fact of his being the citizen of another nation prevented his receiving the highest honors in the po

West Indies, and South America. In 1880-81 he made a trip around the world, full of satisfaction in his o

ed an end to the great American republic; for how could people with such diversified interests, with such natural barriers, hold together? He did not foresee how strongly a fine copper wire could bind together the two seaboards and th

verb tele that is found in telegraph. The phone is from another Greek word meaning "to sound." To telephone, therefore, means "to sound afar." The use of the English word telephone by Wheatsone is

smit speech. He was educated in the Edinburgh high school and in the University of Edinburgh, and in 1867 he entered the University of London. Hard study broke down his health and he moved to Canada. Thence he moved to the United States, becoming first a teacher of deaf mutes, and afterward professor of vocal physiology in Boston University. In 1874, at the suggestion of the Boston Board of

ater on the same day from Elisha Gray, an electrical inventor of Chicago. The patent was issued to Bell, not because his invention was superior in merit to Gray's, but on the ground that his application was received first. This is

elephone was firmly established as a social and commercial necessity. It has grown with great rapidity. It is now found in every city of

a wire several hundred feet long. Many persons testified that they were acquainted with Drawbaugh's apparatus, some of them having used it. Some instruments, said to be the original ones which Drawbaugh had constructed, were brought into court and exhibited. It was shown that speech could be transmitted with them in a crude way. Drawbaugh claimed that he was too poor at the time of making the apparatus to take out the necessary patent. The Court decided in favor of Bell. Elisha G

t, and it will not be strange if, within a few years, we shall be talking t

Vail used in Graded Literature