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

830 APPENDIX.
passed through many of the official positions, holding a commission from
De Witt Clinton.
The purp oses of this work do not allow of an extended notice of the
many distinguished services rendered by Col. Speed in the advancement
of the Arts and Sciences. I will, therefore. more particularly notice his
connection with the telegraph, in the service of which he has been recognized as one of the most distinguished.
From 1832 to 1846, Col. Speed made many experiments, having in view
the perfection of telegraphing. He was aided by Mr. Charles J. Johnson, of
Oswego. Their attention at first was directed to the visual system, and
they succeeded in making some very valuable improvements; greatly
facilitating the transmission of intelligence by the semaphore. In 1837,
they sent their improvements to the Emperor Nicholas of Russia, and in
return they received a highly complimentary letter, fully appreciating the
invaluable services they had rendered the imperial government.
These gentlemen devised means of communicating intelligence by elec.
tricity, but as they did not press their inventions and discoveries to an
early fruition, other systems were introduced and became generally
accepted-the most distinguished of which was the apparatus invented by
Prof. Morse.
In 1846, Col. Speed became associated with Mr. Ezra Cornell, of Ithaca,
New-York, in the extension of the Morse telegraph lines, in the northeast
and northwest. These gentlemen united their energies and talents in the
perfection of the various apparatuses of the system; and to them, perhaps,
more than any other two telegraphers, we are indebted for the successful
operating of the lines. They invented innumerable simple and useful
contrivances, effecting rapidity and convenience in the manipulation of the
telegraph.
The united energies of these gentlemen and their conjunctive associates,
Messrs. J. H. Wade, S. W. Hotchkiss, Tower Jackson, and others, in a
short time erected and successfully operated some five thousand miles of
lines, traversing New-York, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois.
At the present time Col. Speed is associated with Mr. Henry O'Reilly
in the extension of the telegraph westward of the Mississippi to the Pacific
ocean, traversing the widespread plains of the far West, and the meandering passes of the Rocky Mountains. He is also connected with Mr.
Tal. P. Shaffner in the consummation of the telegraph between the eastern
and western hemispheres, via Greenland, Iceland, and the Faroe Isles.
Col. Speed continues in the enjoyment of full vigor, good health, and
energies as active as the youth of twenty. Through his co-operation the
world may confidently expect to see the Atlantic and Pacific oceans united
by the lightning cord, and the continents connected by the fiery chain
beneath the bosom of the ocean.