nother across the Bay
of Anadyr, were to link the two continents.

The expedition started in the summer of 1865 with a fleet of about
thirty vessels, carrying telegraph and other stores. In spite of severe
hardships, a considerable part of the line had been erected when the
successful completion of the trans-Atlantic cable, in 1866, caused the
enterprise to be abandoned after an expenditure of 3,000,000 dollars. A
trace cut for the line through the forests of British Columbia is still
known as the 'telegraph trail.' In spite of this misfortune the Western
Union Telegraph Company has continued to flourish. In 1883 its capital
amounted to 80,000,000 dollars, and it now possesses a virtual monopoly
of telegraphic communication in the United States.

Morse did not limit his connections to land telegraphy. In 1854, when
Mr. Cyrus Field brought out the Atlantic Telegraph Company, to lay a
cable between Europe and America, he became its electrician, and went to
England for the purpose of consulting with the English engineers on the
execution of the project. But his instrument was never used on the ocean
lines, and, indeed, it was not adapted for them.

During this time Alfred Vail continued to improve the Morse apparatus,
until it was past recognition. The porte-rule and type of the
transmitter were discarded for a simple 'key' or rocking lever, worked
up and down by the hand, so as to make and break the circuit. The clumsy
framework of the receiver was reduced to a neat and portable size. The
inking pen was replaced by a metal wheel or disc, smeared with ink, and
rolling on the paper at every dot or dash. Vail, as we have seen, also
invented the plan of embossing the message. But he did still more. When
the recording instrument was introduced, it was found that the clerks
persisted in 'reading' the signals by the clicking of the marking lever,
and not from the paper. Threats of instant dismissal did not stop the
practice when nobody was looking on. Morse, who regarded the record
as the distinctive feature of his invention, was very hostile to the
practice; but Nature was too many for him. The mode of interpreting by
sound was the easier and more economical of the two; and Vail, with
his mechanical instinct, adopted it. He produced an instrument in which
there is no paper or marking device, and the message is simply sounded
by the lever of the armature striking on its metal stops. At present the
Morse recorder is rarely used