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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    brought them together for a specific purpose, I was, so far as they are concerned, the true inventor, &c. This pretension to superior learning, having tried all the expe- riments, explained everything to Morse, &c, &c, runs through all his subsequent correspondence, publications, and depositions. Now, as to the alleged experiment of Dr. Franklin making electricity go a journey of twenty miles, &c, Prof. Morse was doubtless ignorant of it, for we imagine it never existed except in Dr. Jackson's prolific imagination. But it made the doctor appear very learned! Dr. Jackson said he was not making conjectures, not pro- pounding unwrought problems—all was absolute certainty ; he had performed all the experiments in detail, and was re- porting facts. In his Boston deposition, page 162, the following question was put to Dr. Jackson, viz : Please state whether or not, after your return from Europe, you constructed any telegraphic apparatus, and if any, what? In his answer he says, in 1834 I took the electro-magnet which I brought home in the Sully, &c, going on to describe cer- tain appendages which he affixed to it, and stating his object thus: This was a rough and extempore contrivance for the purpose of TESTING THE PRACTICABILITY OF WORKING A LEVER REAM BY ELECTRO- MAGNETISM, so as to produce, by the pin point attached to the end of it, punctures on paper, or other permanent markings or im- pressions. Now here, confessedly, was a problem unwrought in 1832, an experiment not performed? a fact unknown Two years after the conversation on board the Sully, in which he said as he alleees that the thing was perfectly easy, there is no diiticulty about it be swears that he was trying an experiment to test its « practicability? In the same deposition, he says he declared, on board the Sully, there is no difficulty about it, and yet he was employed two years afterwards in experiments to test its practi- cability ! There is another fact, which shows that this very earned man had alter all taken very little pains to inform himself on the sub- icct r ectro-magnetism, and in reality knew very little about Jit He has himself furnished evidence, that in 1832 he was to- allv gnorant of important facts and suggestions in relation to %m nee which had been made public.ten years lufore ! In Setter to Prof. Morse, dated November 7th, 183/, he says: « I have searched the archives of science and find that the first idea of such an instrument was conceived by Soemenng, who 3