which, at one time, threatened to be referred to the arbitrament of the sword. Allusion has been made to the electro-magnetic telegraph, and the first establishment of communication between America and Europe by it. That invention, conceived more than a century ago, was first brought to perfection and made a medium for the transmission of language instantly over great spaces, by Samuel Finley Breese Morse of New York, and was first presented to public notice in the year 1838. He filed a caveat at the Patent Office in the autumn of 1837, and gave a private exhibition of its marvellous power, in the New York University, in January, 1838, when intelligence was instantly transmitted through a circuit of ten miles of wire, and plainly recorded on a cylinder. Professor Morse applied to Congress for pecuniary aid to enable him to construct an experimental line of telegraph between Washington and Baltimore. He was unsuccessful, and for four years he waited for the tardy action of his government. Then, in the spring of 1842, Congress appropriated $30,000 for his use; and two years afterward Professor Morse transmitted from Washington to Baltimore, a distance of forty miles, the first message, furnished him by a young lady—“What hath God wrought!" The first public message was the announcement of the nomination of James K. Polk for President of the United States, by a Democratic convention sitting at Baltimore, in May, 1844. Others claimed to be the authors of the great invention, and Professor Morse was put upon the defensive. Infringements of the patents he had obtained ensued, and years of costly litigation. He triumphed. His rights were fully and finally established by the careful sifting of testimony by the courts, and a decision was made from which there could be no just appeal, that Professor Morse was the original and sole inventor of the electromagnetic recording teiegraph system, known by his name. Its value was soon perceived. Monarchs bestowed orders and pecuniary gifts upon the inventor, and colleges conferred honorary degrees upon him. Professor Morse originated marine telegraphy. He suggested the possi bility of telegraphic communication between America and Europe, by means of a submarine cable, in a letter to the Secretary of the Treasury in the summer of 1843; and in 1858 he participated in the labors and honors of achieving it. In the summer of that year a cable was laid between Valencia in Ireland and the shore of Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, over the great ocean plateau discovered by Professor Maury of the National Observatory. The first intelligent communication was made on the 13th of August. Early in the morning of the 17th, a message was received from the Queen CHAP. XXVIII. WEATHER-SIGNAL SERVICE. 1735 of Great Britain, for the President of the United States, and an answer was immediately returned, when the cable ceased its functions. It was dumb. until the summer of 1866, when communication was re-established, and has been permanent ever since. There now seems to be no impediment to its utterances by a pathway under the sea, and over the land, between nearly all the countries of the civilized world. Many new functions of this great invention have been discovered, and its powers seem to be in their infancy of manifestation. Messages are now sent by a single wire, each way, at the same instant of time. The human voice and the melody of musical instruments may now be transmitted over hundreds of miles of space, and even impressions of handwriting and the living features of the human face may now be sent by friend to friend, from State to State, from ocean to ocean. Commerce and agriculture are receiving vast benefits from its use in meteorological observations and scientific predictions of future events. In the year 1870, Congress authorized the establishment of a WeatherSignal Service, under the control of the War Department, which was designed to collect information and give notice by signals or by telegraph, of any approaching danger; in time of peace, of dangers to arise from storms in their progress. or other atmospheric disturbances. This peculiar service was invented and organized by General Albert J. Myer, who has been at the head of it from the beginning. The system, as arranged by General Myer, permits the forecasting of atmospheric phenomena for twentyfour hours in advance; and to such perfection is the system brought, that almost ninety per cent. of the predictions are verified by actual results, Simultaneous weather reports from simultaneous observations, taken at different places, are transmitted to the Signal Office at Washington. Three of these simultaneous reports are made in each twenty-four hours, at the same instant of time, at intervals of eight hours; and warnings are given by signals, maps, bulletins, and official despatches, furnished by the Signal Office three times each day, to nearly all the newspapers of the land. So thoroughly is this work done, by means of the telegraph, and by the perfect organization of the system and the discipline of the operators, that it is estimated one-third of all the families in our country are in possession, each day, of the information at the Signal Office in Washington. The value of this service to commerce and agriculture is incalculable. A storm raging in any part of the country may be known to ports and districts in its track many hours before it can reach such points; and deductions from known meterological laws, enables the Signal Bureau to predict the probable state of the weather in every part of the country with great accuracy. The ΠΙΟ advantages of such a service is obvious. The invention and operations of the electro-magnetic telegraph, furnishes a marvellous chapter in the history of our country. In the year 1870, the ninth enumeration or census of the inhabitants of the United States and their productions, was begun; but it was not completed until late in the next year. The revelations of that census concerning the growth of our country in population, development of its resources and its various industries, was wonderful. It shows the remarkable fact that the inhabitants of this comparatively young country with its immense outof-doors, are not even now, in their youth, a pre-eminently agricultural people. When the first enumeration was taken in the year 1790, and the population was about four million, the value of the annual products of our agriculture was reported at $150,000,000. That of our manufactures was then quite small. The assessed wealth of the people then was estimated at $497,293,000. Sixty years after that enumeration (1850), the value of the annual products of agriculture was given at $1,070,000,000, and of manufactures at $1,019,000,000, and the assessed wealth at $2,276,000,000. Our population then was little more than twenty-three million. Twenty years later, or at our last national enumeration (1870), when our population was almost forty million, the value of the annual agricultural products, including that of the farms, orchards, forests, buildings and live-stock, was estimated at almost $3,000,000,000. At the same time the value of the annual product of our manufactures was estimated at $4,232,325,000, or $1,232,325,000 more than the total value of the agricultural products of our country. This shows an increase in the value of the products of our manufactures, in the last twenty years, of over three hundred per cent. After this enumeration of the inhabitants, and the final restoration of the Union, in May, 1872, a new apportionment in representation was estab lished, making the ratio one hundred and thirty-seven thousand, instead of ninety thousand. A new Pension bill was also adopted, giving eight dollars a month to all surviving officers, enlisted men, and volunteers in the wars of the Revolution and of 1812, or their surviving widows. To these recipients of pensions, and those of the late Civil War, our Government is now paying nearly $30,000,000 a year. CHAPTER XXIX. PROPOSITIONS OF NATIONAL INTEREST REJECTED -PUBLIC PARK 66 " DISTINGUISHED VISITORS—INAUGURATION OF GRANT-HIS CABINET-ACTS OF CONGRESS Τ' HE year of grace, 1872, was a "Presidential year"-a year when the Chief Magistrate of the Republic is chosen-and that subject naturally occupied much of the public attention during the summer and fall; yet there were, besides, projects of a national character, of great interest, presented for consideration. One of these was a proposition to place the telegraph system of our country under the control of the National Government, and make it a part of the postal system of the United States. Another project was the enlargement of the land-locked navigation, by means of canals, from the extreme eastern portion of the Union to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Mississippi River to various ports on the Atlantic coast. The governor of Virginia proposed that the State debts. should be assumed by the National Government-an act that was wise and just when our Government first went into operation, for the State debts had been incurred chiefly by expenditures during the war for independence, for the general good. The present State debts have all been incurred for the benefit of each State separately. These various propositions failed to secure the popular favor. By an act of Congress a large tract of the public domain, about forty miles square, lying near the head-waters of the Yellowstone River, on the northeastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, was set apart for a public park. It is withdrawn from sale, settlement and occupancy, and is dedicated to the "pleasure and enjoyment of the people of the United States." Early in the year 1872, several political national conventions were held for the purpose of nominating candidates for the Presidency. The first was that of the "Labor-Reform Party," held at Columbus, Ohio, in February, when David Davis of Illinois, one of the judges of the Supreme Court of the United States, was nominated. Mr. Davis declined, and finally Charles O'Conor of the city of New York was nominated by that party. In April, a "Colored National Convention" was held in New Orleans; but they refrained from nominating a President. A movement, begun in Missouri in 1870, for an union of Democrats and so-called "Liberal Republicans," culminated, in the spring and summer of 1872, in the fusion of these two political elements. A convention of "Liberal Republicans" assembled at Cincinnati on the first of May (1872), and nominated the late Horace Greeley for President, and B. Gratz Brown of Missouri for Vice-President. The regular Republican Convention assembled at Philadelphia on the 5th of June, and nominated President Grant for re-election, and Senator Henry Wilson of Massachusetts for Vice-President. On the 9th of July the Democratic Convention assembled at Baltimore, and adopted the nominees of the "Liberals" (Messrs. Greeley and Brown) by an almost unanimous vote. The Opposition party expected much strength from the coalition; but Grant and Wilson were elected, the majority of the former being much greater than he received in 1868. Distinguished visitors came to the United States in 1872. An imposing embassy of twenty-one persons came from Japan to make inquiries about the renewal of former treaties between the two governments; but, not having sufficient delegated power to make such renewals, the matter was not then settled. Relations between the United States and Japan are cordial in the extreme; and the commerce, politics, and society of the two nations are rapidly becoming more intimate with each other. The same year the Grand Duke Alexis, son of the Emperor of Russia, made a tour through our country, and was graciously received everywhere. President Grant's second term of office began on the 4th of March, 1873. It was an intensely cold day at the National Capital; but the inaugural ceremonies were performed, as usual, in the open air, at the east front of the Capitol. Chief-Justice Chase administered the oath of office; and it was one of the latest public acts of that distinguished jurist. His health had been failing for some time, in consequence of a paralytic stroke in 1872, and he died two months after these imposing ceremonies. The Senate immediately confirmed President Grant's nominations of constitutional advisers, which were as follows: Hamilton Fish, Secretary of State; William A. Richardson, Secretary of the Treasury; William W. Belknap, Secretary of War; George A. Robeson, Secretary of the Navy; Columbus Delano, Secretary of the Interior; John A. J. Creswell, Postmaster-General; and George H. Williams, Attorney-General. Changes in the personnel of the |