MY FATHER Born September 25,1807 Died Jultmty l859 On his forty-sixth birthday Vails diary records Riches and honor I care not for. Riches he did not have, and this pamphlet, the labor of my declining years, will, I trust, show his. share in bringing 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 l The Telegraph. Vails records now belong to the S nithsonian Institution at Washington, D. C., and are open to . t he public. - . - 1 tonmthmwith tbe Ekctta-wig t . f ckg rph, .., ., ., . L l . . l I i S m Electric Teiegtaph has, pmpeflyrspeaking, rto inrentor. If grew little by littk, each inventor adding his little to advance it towards perfection. About 16r, -hmianus Strada uf Rome daimed ib have signalled without wires by means of two sympathetic compasses. S r k o s f electricity were sent through wke in 1729 and 1730. A b u t r750, hleclianical Electricity i a s first suggcaed. 1753, it was proposed to send signals through insulated Gires on poles. 1774, Lesage used 24 insulated wircs and claimed to have contemplatcd for thirty years corresponding by electricity. . 1787, Lomond used a single brass wire of sonrc length. 1791, Samuel F. B. Morse was born. I . l 3794, Rieser used 36 wires. rm, Cavello used a Leyden jar ancl alwut zoo feet of copper wire. rjgX, Salva successfully signalled 2G miles. 7, Alfred VaiI was born. r 8, Chemical Electricity used for signalling by Von Soemil ering of Munich. 1812, Shilling expIoded powder mines 11y electricity across the river N e a near St. Pettrsburg. 1816, Ronalds signalled through 8 miles of wire and his principle was successfully used byWheatstone, 1839, by House, 184G, and by Hughes in 1850, and in same year 1816 Dr. Coxe of Philadelphia suggested co ll unica b ti y o n electricity. 1820, Oersted also suggested the same means of communication, and Ampere discovered galvanic magnetism. 1823, Bar011 SchjIling signalled by electricity. 1824, Peter Barlow signalled with a Sturgeolis magnet and tlie Edinburg Philosophical Journal for January, 1825, puI Iisl erht is conclusioris as foIlows The details of this contrivallce are so d vious and the prlllciplc on which it was founded so well undersfood that there was only one question which could render the result doul tful, and this was is there ally diminution of effect hy lengthening the wire Two hundred feet of wire so reduced the effect that 11c gave it up. In 1828, Dyer, an American, strung nires on poles, with glass insuIators. 1828 to 1831, Prof. Joseph Henry sent electric signals at Albany, N. Y. Prof. Chas. A. Joy, . D., writes in Frank Leslies Popztkar Monthly for August, 1878, as folIows Prof. hlorse in his report of the Paris Exhihition of 1SG7 lays clainr to the foIIowing inventions and discoveries as having k e n made 11. him 1 lhe recorrlalg telcgtbpll, operated e ther electro-magnetically or eltXtr0-clmi ically. 2, rhe telrgrapl icr elay circuit, qr tlw opgjng and closing of a secondary circuit by means of a rimarcyir cuit. 3. 1 1 dot andline al diakt. 4. The use of sotmds as a mediun of receiving telegraphic communications. 5. Ille system of automatic transinissioi by the use of nletallic type, or of the embssed papcr strip from the register, as a rneans of opening and closing the circuit. 6. lhe use of a imirlti11 w heel and ink as a mode of recording, general k lown as the ink writer. On page 159 of Alfrcd ails book Thc American Electro-Magnetic TeIegraph, 1845, is a chapter headed Electro-hiag etiPcr inting Telegraph invented by Alfrcd ail Sept. 1837...