The Portland daily press., 1872-04-05
THE PR ESS.
FRIDAY MORNING, APRIL 5, 1872.
Prof. Samuel f. B Morse.

AVA' OohhuCA L . II HAUl DC.
In the death of Samuel Finley Breeze
Morse, practical science loses one of its
brightest ornaments. Born in Charlestown,
Massachusetts,, April 9th, 1871, his whole
life has been passed in the cultivation of art
and science. At twenty years of age he
went to England and studied painting under
Benjamin West When only twenty-five he
exhibited his "Dying Hercules" at the Royal
Academy, and soon after received a gold
medal from the London Adelphi for a plaster
model OF the same. Returning home in 1916,
he labored at his profession at rates of remu-
neration which, in these days, would be con-
sidered far from fattering or lucrative. In
1926, he demonstrated, by model, the FEAST
bility of permanent recording telegraph,
the idea of which had been suggested to him
by DR.. Jackson. He filed his caveat in the
Patent Office, Washington, in 1887; perfect
ed his invention in 1910; and in 1874 COM
pleted the first electric-telegraph in the Unit
ed States, between Washington and Balti-
more.
The representatives of the principal Euro
pean Powers assembled at Paris, about the
year 1857, presented Mr.. Morse with the sum
of 400,00O francs ($S0,OOO) as a recompense
for his invention. In 1S45, he first suggest
ed, in letter to the Secretary of the Treas
ury, the project of the Atlantic telegraph.
Mr.. Morse was writer as well as painter
and electritian; but his fame will rest upon
his substantial aid to civilization, in render
ing efficient the idea of telegraphic communi-
cation. ~ -. ~
Many of our readers will remember the ex-
element which pervaded both this country
and Great Britain, refecting more or less in
every enlightened nation on the globe, when
the experiment of connecting Europe and
America by the Atlantic telegraph was as
yet undecided and in process of trial. In
1858, the governments of Great Britain and
the United States had sent,-England the
Agamemnon and this country the Niagara,
their noblest vessels. freighted with twelve
hundred and fifty miles of cable each, to solve
one of the most interesting and important
problems the world had ever discussed, and
it would have been considered in one age OF
the world striking and hopeful omen that
even the congratulations of the two powers
upon the apparent success of the undertaking
should have been interrupted by despatch
in the interest of humanity. The collision
between the steamships Europe and Arabia,
off Cape Race, was telegraphed in order that
the non arrival of the steamer bound for Liv-
pool might not cause anxiety. Compliments
between the governments gave way to COM
forting words for the people.
The moral of the lesson is obvious. The
name of Professor Morse will be held in hon.
or so long as civilization exists, not in con.
sequence OF his immediate personal power In
the affairs of the world, but because, taking
in hand an idea which in other minds was
only an intangible question of scientific pos
sibilities, he worked it out into practical
results, giving new and invaluable force tc
to the every day and commonests facts of life,
making, in short, reality of the widest con-
ception of the most imaginative of poets, by
putting girdle round about the earth in
''forty minutes" 1t is only necessary to
| reflect for moment upon the deprivation it
would be to all of us to lose the electric tele-
graph, to appreciate in some degree, at least,
what we owe to Morse. .. -