means by which the object sought could be attained. Soon his ideas were
so far focused that he sought to give them expression on paper, and he
drew from his pocket one of the little sketch-books which he always
carried with him, and rapidly jotted down in sketches and words the ideas
as they rushed from his brain. This original sketch-book was burned in a
mysterious fire which, some years later, during one of the many telegraph
suits, destroyed many valuable papers. Fortunately, however, a certified
copy had wisely been made, and this certified copy is now in the National
Museum in Washington, and the reproduction here given of some of its
pages will show that Morse's first conception of a Recording Electric
Magnetic Telegraph is practically the telegraph in universal use to-day.

[Illustration: DRAWINGS FROM 1832 SKETCH BOOK, SHOWING FIRST CONCEPTION
OF TELEGRAPH]

His first thought was evidently of some system of signs which could be
used to transmit intelligence, and he at once realized that nothing could
be simpler than a point or a dot, a line or dash, and a space, and a
combination of the three. Thus the first sketch shows the embryo of the
dot-and-dash alphabet, applied only to numbers at first, but afterwards
elaborated by Morse to represent all the letters of the alphabet.

Next he suggests a method by which these signs may be recorded
permanently, evidently by chemical decomposition on a strip of paper
passed along over two rollers. He then shows a message which could be
sent by this means, interspersed with ideas for insulating the wires in
tubes or pipes. And here I want to call attention to a point which has
never, to my knowledge, been noticed before. In the message, which, in
pursuance of his first idea, adhered to by him for several years, was to
be sent by means of numbers, every word is numbered conventionally except