aint-hearted would have seemed insuperable, constitutes one
of his greatest claims to undying fame. He left on record an account of
his experiences in Europe on this voyage, memorable in more ways than
one, and extracts from this, and from letters written to his daughter and
brothers, will best tell the story:--

"On May 16, 1838, I left the United States and arrived in London in June,
for the purpose of obtaining letters patent for my Electro-Magnetic
Telegraph System. I learned before I left the United States that
Professor Wheatstone and Mr. Cooke, of London, had obtained letters
patent in England for a '_Magnetic-Needle Telegraph_,' based, as the name
implies, on the _deflection of the magnetic needle_. Their telegraph, at
that time, required _six conductors_ between the two points of
intercommunication _for a single instrument_ at each of the two termini.
Their mode of indicating signs for communicating intelligence was by
deflecting _five magnetic needles_ in various directions, in such a way
as to point to the required letters upon a diamond-shaped dial-plate. It
was necessary that the signal should be _observed at the instant_, or it
was lost and vanished forever.

"I applied for letters patent for my system of communicating intelligence
at a distance by electricity, differing in all respects from Messrs.
Wheatstone and Cooke's system, invented five years before theirs, and
having nothing in common in the whole system but the use of _electricity_
on _metallic conductors_, for which use no one could obtain an exclusive
privilege, since this much had been used for nearly one hundred years. My
system is peculiar in the employment of _electro-magnetism_, or the
_motive_ power of electricity, _to imprint permanent signs at a
distance_.

"I made no use of the deflections of the magnetic needle as _signs_. I
required but _one conductor_ between the two termini, or any number of
intermediate points of intercommunication. I used _paper moved by
clockwork_ upon which I caused a _lever_ moved by _magnetism_ to _imprint
the letters_ and _words_ of any required dispatch, having also invented
and adapted to telegraph writing a _new and peculiar alphabetic
character_ for that purpose, a _conventional alphabet_, easily acquired
and easily made and used by the operator. It is obvious at once, from a
simple statement of these facts, that the system of Messrs. Wheatstone
and Cooke and my system were wholly unlike each other. As