Masters of Space Morse, Thompson, Bell, Marconi, Carty

ph Company-The Weste

vements of Alfred V

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s. It was operated as a branch of the Post-office Department. On the 4th of April a visitor from Virginia came into the Washington office wishing to see a demonstration. Up to this time not a paid message had been sent. The visitor, having no permit from the Postmaster-General, was told that he could only see the telegraph in operation by sending a message. One cent being all the money he had other than

's telegraph lines before it the Government declined the offer. This action was taken at the recommendation of the Hon. Cave Johnson, then Postmaster-General, under whose direction the line had been operated. He had been a member of Congress at the time the original appropriation was voted, and had ridiculed the project. The nation was now so unfortunate as to have him as its Postmaster-G

elphia, and to arouse interest and secure capital the apparatus was exhibited in New York City at a charge of twenty-five cents a head. The public refused to patronize in sufficient numbers to even pay expenses, and the entire exhibition was so shabby, and the exhibitors so poverty-stricken, that the sleek capitalists who came departed without investing. Some of the exhibitors slept on chairs or on the floor in the bare room, and it is related that the man who was lat

tism. He had become convinced that the telegraph could and would succeed on American capital alone. In the next year a line was constructed from Philadelphia to Washington, thus extending the New York-Philadelphia line to

e People's Line," and when called to account in the courts insisted not only that his instruments were different from Morse's, and so no infringement of his patents, but also that the Morse system was a harmful monopoly and that "The People's Line" should be encouraged. It was further urge

ny lacked the capital to construct lines with sufficient rapidity to meet the need. Within ten years after the first line had been put into operation the more thickly settled portions of the United States were served by scores of telegraph lines o

d by Mr. Hiram Sibley, who organized the Western Union in 1856. The plan was ridiculed at the time, some one stating that "The Western Union seems very like collecting all the

Sibley proposed that the Western Union should undertake the construction of such a line he was met with the strongest opposition. The explorations of Frémont were not far in the past, and the vast extent of country west of the Mississippi was regarded as a wilderness peopled with savages and almost impossible of development. But Sibley had faith; he

and Fort Laramie he invited the chief of the Arapahoes at Fort Kearney to communicate by telegraph with his friend the chief of the Sioux at Fort Laramie. The two chiefs exchanged telegrams and were deeply impressed. They were told that the telegraph was the voice of the Manitou or Great Spirit. To convince them it was suggested that they meet half-way and co

eaking down the early lines because they believed that they would take away the good luck of their district. The Arabs, on the other hand, did not oppose the telegra

peoples in other parts of the world could scarce believe it possible. A story is told of the construct

rry messages to Ca

ds run along a w

n puzzled f

g enough to reach from here to Calcutta, and you pi

d be stretched on land, only short submarine cables being necessary. It was then seriously doubted that cables long enough to cross the Atlantic were practicable. The expedition started in 1865, a fleet of thirty vessels carrying the men and supplies. Tremendous difficulties had been overcome and a considerable part of the work accomplished w

ry out Morse's ideas, and he continued to improve and perfect until practically nothing remained of Morse's original apparatus. The original Morse transmitter had consisted of a porte-rule and movable type. This was cumbersome, and Vail substituted a simple key to make and brea

d that they could read the messages from the long and short periods between the clicks of the receiving mechanism. Thus they were taking the message by ear and the recording mechanism was superfluous. Rules and fines failed to break them of the habit, and Vail, recognizing the utility of the d

actical inventor. Alfred Vail, joining with Morse after the latter had conceived the telegraph, but before his apparatus was in practical form, was a tireless and invaluable mechanical assistant. His inventions of apparatus were o

ion of the fame and the rewards that came to him as inventor of the telegraph. Morse was the directing genius;

secure foreign patents, many of the foreign governments recognized the value of his invention, and France, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, Russia, Sweden, Turkey, and some smaller nations joined in paying him a

d, this time one of Benjamin Franklin, and Morse presided at the ceremonies. The venerable man received a tremendous ovation on this occasi

. On the telegraph as invented by Morse but one message could be sent over a single wire at one time. It was later discovered that two messages' could be sent over the single wire in opposite directions at the same time. This was called duplex telegraphy. Edison invented duplex telegraphy by which two messages could be sent over the same wire in the same direction at the same time. Later he succeeded in

fective only over a short line and attained no very great speed. Edison improved the apparatus until it transmitted thirty-five hundred words a minut