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588                PROFESSOR MORSE AND THE TELEGRAPH.
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[[Morse Code: w r o u]]
tion. Finally, in 1851, the rival lines were consolidated, when different companies were formed to operate under the same patent. Since then other consolidations have taken place, and the Western Union Telegraph Company now controls a greater portion of business in this country. According to a statement made by its able electrician, George B. Prescott, in January, 1871, that company was then operating 56,000 miles of line, 125,000 of wire, 4,600 offices, and was transmitting over 10,000,000 messages annually. The remaining companies were then operating about 10,000 miles of line. At about the same time there were in round numbers 175,000 miles of line and 475,000 miles of wire in operation in Great Britain, Ireland, and on the European continent. At the same time also there were over thirty six thousand miles of submarine lines laid under the waters of the Atlantic and German Oceans; the Baltic, North Mediterranean, Arabian, China, Japan and Red Seas; the Persian Gulf; the Bay of Biscay; the Straits of Gibraltar and Malacca, and the Gulfs of Mexico and the St. Lawrence by which the civilized world is put into close mental communication.
    Of marine telegraphy, Professor Morse was the originator. So early as 1842, he laid the first marine cable across the harbor of New York, which achievement won for him the gold medal of the American Institute; and in a letter to John C. Spencer, then Secretary of Treasury, in August, 1843, concerning electro-magnetism and its powers, he [[*An image, with the caption "MORSE'S RESIDENCE AT LOCUST GROVE" below]] wrote: "The practical inference from this law is, that a telegraphic communication on the electro-magnetic plan may with certainty be established across the Atlantic Ocean. Startling as this may now seem, I am confident the time will come when this project will be realized." That prophecy was fulfilled in 1858, when Professor Morse had yet fourteen years of life before him, and the most wonderful achievements of his marvelous invention were yet unrevealed. Among these was the long-worked-for result, accomplished only a few weeks before his death, namely, the transmission of messages both ways over the same wire at the same instant. This is the last great triumph of electro-magnetic telegraphy.
    Very soon the almost sentient electro magnetic nerve will convey instant intelligence through every ocean to every continent of the glove. May we not liken that nerve, throbbing with its mysterious essence, to the voice of the angel in the Apocalypse, who stood with one foot upon the land and the other upon the sea and proclaimed that time should be no longer?
    Professor Morse enjoyed the full fruition of his great discovery, and received during his life the honors and emoluments which were justly his due. In addition to the attentions paid to him by governments, he was made the recipient of public honorary banquets in London, Paris, and New York. At the latter, given at the close of 1868, the Chief Justice of the United States presided, and many of the dignitaries of the republic and the British minister at Washington were in attendance.
    In 1871 a statue of Professor Morse was erected in Central Park, New York, at the expense of the telegraph operators of the country. It was unveiled on the 10th of June with the most imposing ceremonies, in which leading men of the nation participated. There were delegates from every State in the Union, and from the British provinces. In the evening a public reception was given to the venerable inventor at the Academy of Music, at which Hon. William Orton, President of the Western Union Telegraph Company, presided, assisted by the scores of the