(SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING) Pair of issues of the National Int

Sale 2675 - Lot 261

Unsold

Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900

(SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING.) Pair of issues of the National Intelligencer with front-page reports on the telegraph. Each 4 pages, 23 x 18 inches; disbound, moderate toning to second issue; subscriber's name above mastheads. Washington, 20 April and 9 May 1844

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Morse's first telegraph line ran from Baltimore to Washington, making the story of local as well as national interest to the National Intelligencer. From the 20 April 1844 issue, at the top of column 4: "I was again in the room occupied by Professor Morse, with his electro-magnetic battery applied to his telegraph. The wires (two) extend to the village of Beltsville, twelve miles from Washington. While I was there he had a connexion of the wires at the distance of eleven miles, so that the termini were on the same table. . . . By applying the fluid at one end the other caused a small hammer to strike a tumbler. The touches were simultaneous. . . . The same effect would be produced did the wire extend round the globe."

From the 9 May 1844 issue, near the bottom of column 3: "Professor Morse's Electro-Magnetic Telegraph, in course of construction between Washington and Baltimore, is now in full operation a distance of twenty-two miles. . . . Information of the Whig nominations for President and Vice President was communicated by means of the Telegraph. The fluid traversed the whole twenty-two miles and back again . . . in no perceptible part of a second of time."

The line's ceremonial opening took place two weeks later, on 24 May, with the famous message "What hath God wrought."