[Footnote 8:  Voted:  here this word means given or granted.]

227.  The first telegraph line built; the first message sent; the telegraph and the telephone[9] now.—­When, at length, Professor Morse did speak, he said to Miss Ellsworth, “Now, Annie, when my line is built from Washington to Baltimore, you shall send the first message over it.”  In the spring of 1844 the line was completed, and Miss Ellsworth sent these words over it (they are words taken from the Bible):  “What hath God wrought!"[10]

[Illustration:  WHAT THE BIRDS THINK TELEGRAPH WIRES WERE PUT UP FOR.]

For nearly a year after that the telegraph was free to all who wished to use it; then a small charge was made, a very short message costing only one cent.  On the first of April, 1845, a man came into the office and bought a cent’s worth of telegraphing.  That was all the money which was taken that day for the use of forty miles of wire.  Now there are about two hundred thousand miles of telegraph line in the United States, or more than enough to reach eight times round the earth, and the messages sent bring in over seventy thousand dollars every day; and we can telegraph not only clear across America, but clear across the Atlantic Ocean by a line laid under the sea.  Professor Morse’s invention made it possible for people to write by electricity; but now, by means of the telephone, a man in New York can talk with his friend in Philadelphia, Boston, and many other large cities, and his friend listening at the other end of the wire can hear every word he says.  Professor Morse did not live long enough to see this wonderful invention, which, in some ways, is an improvement even on his telegraph.

[Illustration:  HOW A MESSAGE BY TELEGRAPH IS SENT.[11]]

[Footnote 9:  Telephone (tel’e-fone):  this name is made up of two Greek words, the first of which means far off, and the second, a voice or sound.  The telephone was invented by Professor Alexander G. Bell of Boston; he completed it in 1876.  Professor Bell now lives in Washington.]

[Footnote 10:  See Num. xxiii. 23.]

[Footnote 11:  When the button at Chicago is pressed down, the electricity passing over the wire to Denver presses the point there down on the paper, and so makes a dot or dash which stands for a letter on the roll of paper as it passes under it.  In this way words and messages are spelled out.  The message on the strip of paper above is the question, How is trade?]

228.  Summary.—­Professor Morse invented the Electric Telegraph.  He received much help from Mr. Alfred Vail.  In 1844 Professor Morse and Mr. Vail built the first line of telegraph in the United States, or in the world.  It extended from Washington to Baltimore.  The telegraph makes it possible for us to send a written message thousands of miles in a moment; by the telephone, which was invented after Professor Morse’s death, we can talk with people who are several hundreds of miles away and hear what they say in reply.