to be chosen to illustrate one of the vacant panels in the
Rotunda of the Capitol at Washington; but in this too he was mistaken.
However, some fellow-artists in America, thinking he had deserved
the honour, collected a sum of money to assist him in painting the
composition he had fixed upon: 'The Signing of the First Compact on
Board the Mayflower.'

In a far from hopeful mood after his three years' residence abroad he
embarked on the packet Sully, Captain Pell, and sailed from Havre for
New York on October 1, 1832. Among the passengers was Dr. Charles T.
Jackson, of Boston, who had attended some lectures on electricity in
Paris, and carried an electro-magnet in his trunk. One day while Morse
and Dr. Jackson, with a few more, sat round the luncheon table in the
cabin, he began to talk of the experiments he had witnessed. Some
one asked if the speed of the electricity was lessened by its passage
through a long wire, and Dr. Jackson, referring to a trial of Faraday,
replied that the current was apparently instantaneous. Morse, who
probably remembered his old lessons in the subject, now remarked that if
the presence of the electricity could be rendered visible at any point
of the circuit he saw no reason why intelligence might not be sent by
this means.

The idea became rooted in his mind, and engrossed his thoughts. Until
far into the night he paced the deck discussing the matter with Dr.
Jackson, and pondering it in solitude. Ways of rendering the electricity
sensible at the far end of the line were considered. The spark might
pierce a band of travelling paper, as Professor Day had mentioned years
before; it might decompose a chemical solution, and leave a stain to
mark its passage, as tried by Mr. Dyar in 1827; Or it could excite
an electro-magnet, which, by attracting a piece of soft iron, would
inscribe the passage with a pen or pencil. The signals could be made by
very short currents or jets of electricity, according to a settled code.
Thus a certain number of jets could represent a corresponding numeral,
and the numeral would, in its turn, represent a word in the language.
To decipher the message, a special code-book or dictionary would be
required. In order to transmit the currents through the line, he devised
a mechanical sender, in which the circuit would be interrupted by
a series of types carried on a port-rule or composing-stick, which
travelled at a uniform speed. Each type would have a certain number of