The telegraph manual: a complete history and description of the semaphoric, electric and magnetic telegraphs of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, ancient and modern.

CONSTRUCTION OF EXPERIMENTAL LINE. 417
favor of appropriating $30,000 for that purpose. The bill
passed the House of Representatives, and in the last hour of
the last night of the last session of that Congress, March 3d,
1843, the bill passed the Senate, was signed by the President,
and became a law.
CONSTRUCTION OF THE EXPERIMENTAL LINE.
The experimental line between Washington and Baltimore
was placed under course of construction in 1843. It was
attempted to make it subterranean. Two copper wires, covered
with cotton and gum-lac, were drawn through a leaden tube.
From Baltimore to the Relay House, nine miles, were thus
laid in the earth. On testing it an earth circuit was found;
not even a mile of it could be worked. The plan proved a
failure. Professor Morse then, after consultation with his
friends, determined to put the wires on poles. The same copper wire that had been drawn through the leaden tubes for
much of the distance between Baltimore and Washington were
taken from the tubing and stretched on poles.
In May, 1844, the line was completed between those cities,
and on the 27th day of May the first dispatch was transmitted
over the line from Washington to Baltimore. It fell to the
lot of Miss Annie Ellsworth to send that dispatch, which was,
"WHAT IIATH GOD WROUGHT?" As manipulating assistants,
Professor Morse had Mr. Alfred Vail and Mr. L. F. Zantzinger,
the former is no more, and the latter still remains attached to
the profession of practical telegraphing, and is the oldest now
in the service.
The apparatuses used were large and weighty. The electromagnet weighed one hundred and eighty-five pounds, and its
bulky construction made it necessary for two men to handle
it whenever it had to be moved. It was placed in a large box.
Fig. 4 represents, in part, the receiving magnet as then used.
Fig. 4.
A A: B:erc the coils of wire, three and one half inches long and
eighteen inches in diameter. The soft iron bars are A A. The
copper wire surrounding the spools was No. 16 copper wire
covered with cotton thread. It was then supposed, by Professor Morse, as indispensably necessary that the wire surrounding the magnets should be the same size as, that stretched
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