Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution

Front Cover
 

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 341 - Mr. Cooke is entitled to stand alone as the gentleman to whom this country is indebted for having practically introduced and carried out the electric telegraph as a useful undertaking, promising to be a work of national importance ; and Professor Wheatstone is acknowledged as the scientific man, whose profound and successful researches had already prepared the public to receive it as a project capable of practical application...
Page 147 - ... 1. Previous to my investigations the means of developing magnetism in soft iron were imperfectly understood, and the electro-magnet which then existed was inapplicable to the transmission of power to a distance. 2. I was the first to prove by actual experiment that, in order to develop magnetic power at a distance, a galvanic battery of intensity...
Page 22 - III. A. — On the Distribution of the Fishes of the Alleghany Region of South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee, with descriptions of new or little known species.
Page 300 - Up to the autumn of 1837 my telegraphic apparatus existed in so rude a form that I felt a reluctance to have it seen. My means were very limited — so limited as to preclude the possibility of constructing an apparatus of such mechanical finish as to warrant my success in venturing upon its public exhibition. I had no wish to expose to ridicule the representative of so many hours of...
Page 327 - And it was not necessary he should found an institution for this purpose. There are already in every civilized country, establishments and patent laws for the encouragement of this department of mental industry. As soon as any branch of science can be brought to bear on the necessities, conveniences, or luxuries of life, it meets with encouragement and reward.
Page 166 - It is, however, more in accordance with all the phenomena of cohesion to suppose, instead of the attraction of the liquid being neutralized by the heat, that the effect of this agent is merely to neutralize the polarity of the molecules so as to give them perfect freedom of motion around every imaginable axis.
Page 160 - I think the first actual line of telegraph, using the earth as a conductor, was made in the beginning of 1836. A wire was extended across the front campus of the college grounds, from the upper story of the library building to the philosophical hall on the opposite side, the ends terminating in two wells. Through this wire, signals were sent, from time to time, from my house to my laboratory.
Page 346 - The first thing which strikes the reader of this article is, that its title is a misnomer. It is simply an assault upon Professor Henry ; an attempt to disparage his character ; to deprive him of his honors as a scientific discoverer ; to impeach his credibility as a witness and his integrity as a man. It is a disingenuous piece of sophistical argument, such as an unscrupulous advocate might employ to pervert the truth, misrepresent the facts, and misinterpret the language in which the facts belonging...
Page 159 - ... first to prove by actual experiment that, in order to develop magnetic power at a distance, a galvanic battery of intensity must be employed to project the current through the long conductor, and that a magnet surrounded by many turns of one long wire must be used to receive this current.
Page 21 - Contributions to North American ichthyology. Based primarily on the collections of the United States National Museum.

Bibliographic information