E-Book Content
OCT
American
Electro -Magnetic
Telegraph Early History as Shown by Extracts From the Records of Its
::
::
ALFRED VAIL
1914
::
::
of the
Early History
Electro-Magnetic Telegraph From
Letters
and Journals
Arranged by His Son,
J,
of Alfred Vail
Cummings Vail
PUBLISHED BY H1NE BROTHERS, 100 WILLIAM ST.,
PRICE, 50 CEttTS
NEW YORK
M3 IN
LOVING MEMORY OF
MY FATHER Born September 25, 1807
Died January
18.
1859
PREFACE On honor
his forty-sixth birthday Vail's diary records
I care
the labor of
not for."
" :
Riches and
Riches he did not have, and this pamphlet,
my declining
years, will, I trnst,
show
his.
share in bring-
ing the telegraph into successful use. It is
not claimed that Vail invented the telegraph, but this work
shows Morse invented
"A
System
of
Telegraphs," not
"
The
Tele-
graph." Vail's records
now belong
to
Washington, D. C., and are open MORRISTOWN, N. 1914,
J.
the Smithsonian to the public.
Institution
at
292386
ALFRED VAIL
ALFRED VAIL His connection with the Electro-Magnetic Telegraph
It grew little Electric Telegraph had, properly speaking, no inventor. advance to it towards perfection. his little inventor each adding by little, About 1617, Famianus Strada of Rome claimed to have signalled without wires by means of two sympathetic compasses. Sparks of electricity were sent through wire in 1729 and 1730.
The
About 1750, Mecha