Morse's patent : full exposure of Dr. Chas. T. Jackson's pretensions to the invention of the American electro-magnetic telegraph / by Amos Kendall.

  • Kendall, Amos, 1789-1869.
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Morse's patent : full exposure of Dr. Chas. T. Jackson's pretensions to the invention of the American electro-magnetic telegraph / by Amos Kendall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    supposes, is the reason that Prof. Morse was mistaken respecting the color of the peculiar apparatus alluded to, and so inferred at the time of writing deponent's answer to him, Prof. James Kenwiek, of the Columbia College, New York, in his deposition in the Kentucky case, after stating thai he had been acquainted with Prof. Morse more than thirty years, said, that Prof. Morse, before his visit to Europe, about* the year 1830, paid much attention Jo the subject of electricity and magnetism ;' that he believes that prof. Morse was present at the lectures of Dr. Dana, inasmuch as it was the custom of the lecturers to attend each otheVs courses, and any absence would be cause ot remark; tjiat when the interrogatories were put into his hands by Prof. Morse, he was not positively certain that one of Dr. Dana's four lectures was devoted to the subject of oleclro-mng- netism, but that in the course of conversation, Prof. Morse spoke of a permanent magnet caused to revolve on its own axis, by an electric current, as one of the experiments exhibited by Dr. Dana ; that this deponent thereupon recollected the said apparatus, and that he has had one made for the apparatus of Columbia College, which was a copy of the apparatus of Prof. Dana; that this recollection has established in the mind of this deponent ihe cer- tainty, both that Dr. Dana did lecture on electro-magnetism, and that Prof. Morse was present at that particular lecture; that the apparatus in question is rare, and was the invention of Dr. Dana ; and that he believes no other have been made than the original one of Dr. Dana's, and the copy now in the collection of the Columbia College; * *' that he saw Prof. Morse for the first time in Louden, in 1810, and knows that he was long resident in thai city; that the discovery of Sir Humphrey Davy, on which the science of electro-magnetism is founded, took place while Prof. Morse resided there, and made a great noise at the time ; that this discovery, together with the additions made to it by Oersted, were so familiarly known prior to 1827, that he cannot believe that Prof. Morse, whose tendency to scientific inquiries was decided, could have been ignorant of them. Dr. James R. Chilton, in a deposition, fully confirms Professor Morse's recollection in relation to the lectures and Dana's elec- tro-magnet, and expresses his entire disbelief that any one who mingled with scientific characters in 1820-7 could be entirely ignorant of electro-magnetism. Mrs. Matilda W. Dana, widow of Prof. James Freeman Dana, in her deposition in the same case, said: My husband and myself resided in the city of New York in the years 1826 and 18-^7. My husband died on the 15th day of April, 1827, in the city of New York. In the year 1827, he de- livered a course of lectures upon the subject of electro-magnetism