mode of marking by which he
can dispense altogether with the telegraphic dictionary, using letters
instead of numbers, and he can transmit ten words per minute, which is
more than double the number which can be transmitted by means of the
dictionary."

A charming and rather dramatic incident occurred at this exhibition which
was never forgotten by those who witnessed it. General Cummings had just
been appointed to a military command, and one of his friends, with this
fact evidently in mind, wrote a message on a piece of paper and, without
showing it to any one else, handed it to Morse. The assembled company was
silent and only the monotonous clicking of the strange instrument was
heard as the message was ticked off in the dots and dashes, and then from
the other end of the ten miles of wire was read out this sentence
pregnant with meaning:--

"Attention, the Universe, by kingdoms right wheel." The name of the man
who indited that message seems not to have been preserved, but, whoever
he was, he must have been gifted with prophetic vision, and he must have
realized that he was assisting at an occasion which was destined to mark
the beginning of a new era in civilization. The attention of the universe
was, indeed, before long attracted to this child of Morse's brain, and
kingdom after kingdom wheeled into line, vying with each other in
admiration and acceptance.

The message was recorded fourfold by means of a newly invented fountain
pen, and was given to General Cummings and preserved by him. It is here
reproduced.

[Illustration: "ATTENTION THE UNNIVERSE! BY KINGDOMS RIGHT WHEEL!"
Facsimile of the First Morse Alphabet Message, now In the National
Museum, Washington]

It will be noticed that the signs for the letters are those, not of the
first form of the alphabet as embodied in the drawing attached to the
caveat, but of the finally adopted code. This has led some historians,
notably Mr. Franklin Leonard Pope, to infer that some mistake has been
made in giving out this as a facsimile of this early message; that the
letters should have been those of the earlier alphabet. I think, however,
that this is but an added proof that Morse devised the first form of the
code long before he met Vail, and that the changes to the final form, a
description of which I have given, were made by Morse in 1837, or early
in 1838, as soon as he became convinced of the superiority of the
alphabetic mode, in plenty of time to have been