The length of line through which Morse could work his apparatus was
an important point to be determined, for it was known that the current
grows feebler in proportion to the resistance of the wire it traverses.
Morse saw a way out of the difficulty, as Davy, Cooke, and Wheatstone
did, by the device known as the relay. Were the current too weak to
effect the marking of a message, it might nevertheless be sufficiently
strong to open and close the circuit of a local battery which would
print the signals. Such relays and local batteries, fixed at intervals
along the line, as post-horses on a turnpike, would convey the message
to an immense distance. 'If I can succeed in working a magnet ten
miles,' said Morse,'I can go round the globe. It matters not how
delicate the movement may be.'
According to his own statement, he devised the relay in 1836 or
earlier; but it was not until the beginning of 1837 that he explained
the device, and showed the working of his apparatus to his friend, Mr.
Leonard D. Gale, Professor of Chemistry in the University. This
gentleman took a lively interest in the apparatus, and proved a generous
ally of the inventor. Until then Morse had only tried his recorder on a
few yards of wire, the battery was a single pair of plates, and the
electro-magnet was of the elementary sort employed by Moll, and
illustrated in the older books.
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