SAMUEL F. B. MORSE 297 SAMUEL F. B. MORSE (1791-1872) Samuel Finley Breese Morse, artist and inventor, was born at the foot of Breed's Hill, Charlestown, Mass., on April 27, 1791. His father was the Rev. Jedediah Morse, D.D., the author of Morse's "Geog- raphy." At the age of fourteen Samuel Morse entered Yale College ; under the instruction of Professors Day and Silliman he received the first impulse toward those electrical studies with which his name is mainly identi- fied. In 181 1 Morse, whose tastes during his early years led him more strongly toward art than toward science, became the pupil of Washington Allston, then the great- est of American artists, and accompanied his master to England, where he re- mained four years. His success at this period was considerable ; but on his re- turn to America, in 18 15, he failed to obtain commissions for historical paintings, and after working on portraits for two years at Charleston, S. C, he removed first to Washington and afterward to Albany, finally settling in New York. In 1825 he laid the foundations of the National Academy of Design, and was elected its first president, an office which he filled until 1845. The year 1827 marks the re- vival of Morse's interest in electricity. It was at this time that he learned from Professor J. F. Dana, of Columbia College, the elementary, facts of electro-mag- netism. As yet, however, he was devoted to his art, and in 1829 he again went to Europe to study the old masters. The year of his return, 1832, may be said to close the period of his artistic, and to open that of his scientific, life. On board the packet-ship Sully, which sailed from Havre, October 1, 1832, while discussing one day with his fellow- passengers the properties of the electro-magnet, he was led to remark : " If the presence of electricity can be made visible in any part of the circuit, I see no rea- son why intelligence may not be transmitted by electricity." It was not a novel proposition, but the process of formulating it started in his mind a train of new and momentous ideas. The current of electricity, he knew, would pass instantaneously any distance along a wire ; and if it were in- terrupted a spark would appear. It now occurred to him that the spark might represent a part of speech, either a letter or a number ; the absence of the spark, another part ; and the duration of its absence, or of the spark itself, a third ; so that an alphabet might be easily formed, and words indicated. In a few days he had completed rough drafts of the necessary apparatus, which he displayed to his fellow-passengers. Five years later, the captain of the ship identified under oath
