So unless I have the means from some source, I shall he
compelled, however reluctantly, to leave it. No one call tell the days
and months of anxiety and labour I have had in perfecting my
telegraphic apparatus. For want of means I have been compelled to make
with my own hands (and to labour for weeks) a piece of mechanism which
could be made much better, and in a tenth part of the time, by a good
mechanician, thus wasting time--time which I cannot recall, and which
seems double-winged to me.
'"Hope deferred maketh the heart sick." It is true, and I have known
the full meaning of it. Nothing but the consciousness that I have an
invention which is to mark an era in human civilisation, and which is to
contribute to the happiness of millions, would have sustained me through
so many and such lengthened trials of patience in perfecting it.' Morse
did not invent for money or scientific reputation; he believed himself
the instrument of a great purpose.
During the summer of 1842 he insulated a wire two miles long with
hempen threads saturated with pitch-tar and surrounded with india-
rubber. On October 18, during bright moonlight, he submerged this wire
in New York Harbour, between Castle Garden and Governor's Island, by
unreeling it from a small boat rowed by a man.
Pages:
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83