In the far remote period named—­if we measure time by deeds, not by years—­a packet-ship, the Sully, was making its deliberate way across the Atlantic from Havre to New York.  Its passenger list was not large,—­the ocean had not yet become a busy highway of the continents,—­but among them were some persons in whom we are interested.  One of these was a Boston doctor, Charles T. Jackson by name.  A second was a New York artist, named Samuel F.B.  Morse.  The last-named gentleman had been a student at Yale, where he became greatly interested in chemistry and some other sciences.  He had studied the art of painting under Benjamin West in London, had practised it in New York, had long been president of the National Academy of the Arts of Design; and was now on his way home after a second period of residence in Europe as a student of art.

An interesting conversation took place one day in the cabin of the Sully.  Dr. Jackson spoke of Amp[`e]re’s experiments with the electro-magnet; of how Franklin had sent electricity through several miles of wire, finding no loss of time between the touch at one end and the spark at the other; and how, in a recent experiment at Paris, a great length of wire had been carried in circles around the walls of a large apartment, an electro-magnet connected with one end, and an electric current manifested at the other, having passed through the wire so quickly as to seem instantaneous.  Mr. Morse’s taste for science had not died out during his years of devotion to art.  He listened with the most earnest attention to the doctor’s narrative, and while he did so a large and promising idea came into being in his brain.

“Why,” he exclaimed, with much ardor of manner, “if that is so, and the presence of electricity can be made visible in any desired part of the circuit, I see no reason why intelligence should not be transmitted instantaneously by electricity.”

“How convenient it would be if we could send news in that manner!” chimed in one of the passengers.

“Why can’t we?” exclaimed Morse.

Why not, indeed?  The idea probably died in the minds of most of the persons present within five minutes.  But Samuel Morse was not one of the men who let ideas die.  This one haunted him day and night.  He thought of it and dreamed of it.  In those days of deliberate travel time hung heavily on the hands of transatlantic passengers, despite the partial diversions of eating and sleeping.  The ocean grew monotonous, the vessel monotonous, the passengers monotonous, everything monotonous except that idea, and that grew and spread till its fibres filled every nook and cranny of the inventive brain that had taken it in to bed and board.

Morse had abundance of the native Yankee faculty of invention.  To do, had been plain enough from the start.  How to do, was the question to be solved.  But before the Sully steamed into New York harbor the solution had been reached.  In the mind of the inventor, and in graphic words and drawings on paper, were laid down the leading features of that telegraphic method which is used to-day in the great majority of the telegraph lines of the world.