Walter O. Lewis is the lessee of the line. The House instrument is used. We hope he will have better luck than telegraphers generally.

"The great value of the New-York and Sandy Hook Magretie Telegraph Line to the underwriters, and to the whole shipping interests of the city, has been well illustrated within the past few weeks, as through that channel most important and minute information has been conveyed from stranded vessels in the vicinity of Sandy Hook, to their owners and underwriters in this city, by which means many lives and much valuable property have been saved. The line is, as yet, but partially organized for business, but we trust its attentive Manager may receive adequate support from the underwriters and shipping merchants of the city, to enable him to perfect all of his arrangements for working it in the most efficient manner. Mr. Lewis, the Manager of the line, may be found at all hours at the office of the Company, No. 19 Wall-street, corner of Broad-street."

NOTICES OF THE COMPANION AND TARIFF SCALE. The following from the Louisville Times, edited by Cul William Tanner, President of the longest range of lines in the world, with whom we have been associated for many years, thus speaks of the COMPANION. We feel thankful for his good opinion:

"This is one of the series of useful, practical publications which the genius and the enterprise of the present age have produced in rapid succession to an extent never before known in the periodical literature of this country. The great industrial pursuit of which it is an advocate and exponent, has, within the brief period of eight or nine years, established for itself claims upon the attention of the world not surpassed, if equalled, by any other enterprise of science and art of the present century. Any publication devoted exclusively to this vast and increasing pursuit, properly conducted, must command the attention, not only of the thousands of intelligent persons connected with it, but of the public at large.

"This unpretending monthly is designed not only to enlighten the public in regard to the principles of the science, but to inform those engaged in the business of the details of the system and of its success and progress

It will be the repository of every thing interesting connected with each line operating under the Morse patents in the United States, and will record all improvements, suggestions, and new inventions for the more successful prosecution of the business; and in fine, will be a medium through which will be made known all that is connected with telegraphing.

"The position of the editor as Secretary to the voluntary confederation of the managers of the various lines will enable him to have access to all such sources of information as it may be proper to impart to the public, and his industry and long connection with the business are guarantees that he will do his part faithfully in making the work all that it promises to be.

"We are promised in a few days, from the same publishers and editor, a Compound Turiff Telegraph Scale, to be published monthly, in the same form as the COMPANION, containing 32 pages, with corrections and additions as they may occur. This, also, will be an eminently useful work, and should receive the encouragement of every company in the Union. It will enable every telegrapher to know what to charge, and every person using the telegraph lines, to know just what he has to pay for a message sent to any point in the United States or the British Provinces.

Here is a notice from the Evansville Journal, edited by A. H. Sanders, Esq., who always writes well, and is a judge of a good work. We always admired his good taste:

SHAFFNER'S TELEGRAPH COMPANION.-We are indebted to Tal. P. Shaff

ner for the January No. of a new work of which he has just commenced the publication at New-York, of the above name. It is issued monthly, at $2 per annum, or with the Telegraph Chart at $3. It contains a large quantity of reading matter devoted to Telegraphy in all its branches.

It is a work

almost indispensable in telegraph offices, and one which would prove useful to any reading man. Mr. Shaffner is well known in the West as a builder and superintendent of lines, and as an energetic business man. He is a fluent writer, and fully conversant with telegraph matters, so that he cannot help making a good telegraph periodical.

Extract of a Letter from Freeman Brady, Operator, Washington, Pa.—“Sir:— It affords me pleasure to be able to contribute a little aid to you in your praiseworthy, and, to a telegrapher, essentially necessary enterprise. Your COMPANION is replete with useful information, not only to a person engaged in the business, but to all persons who take any interest in the advancement of science. Your TARIFF SCALE is of the utmost value to Companies, and renders it the greatest aid to operators in charge of offices."

Extract of a Letter from C. Bassit, Operator, Roscoe, O.-" Your publications for January are received, and I am very much pleased with them. I need a work devoted to the details of practical telegraphing. Is there such a work published?"

[There is no such work in existence at present, though there is one in preparation.-EDITORS.]

Extract of a Letter from A. E. Trabue, Operator, Nashville, Tenn.-"I sincerely hope your Magazine will be the companion of every operator in the country. It is full of interest and information for telegraphers."

We publish the following notice to the respective Telegraph Companies of America, and hope it will tend to increase the zeal among them to be represented on that occasion. There are questions of very great importance that will be introduced to the Convention, requiring all the wisdom that can be associated to act upon, with proper consideration. We hear of the intended presence of a large representation.

To the Morse Telegraph Companies of America:

The next Annual Convention of the American Telegraph Confederation will assemble at Washington City March 6th, 1854, and all companies using the Morse American Electro-Magnetic Telegraph are requested to be represented by one or more delegates. A general attendance is earnestly requested, as matters of importance to the system of telegraphing are expected to be brought before the Convention.

WASHINGTON, January, 1854.

P. P. FRENCH, President.

SHAFFNER'S

TELEGRAPH COMPANION,

DEVOTED TO THE SCIENCE AND ART OF THE

MORSE AMERICAN TELEGRAPH.

VOL. I.

MARCH, 1854.

No. 3.

Art. I.-MORSE AMERICAN TELEGRAPH PATENTS.

CONTROVERSY WITH O'RIELLY-PEOPLE'S LINE TO NEW-ORLEANS-COMPLETED IN 1848 TO NASHVILLE-APPLICATION FOR INJUNCTION-THE COLUMBIAN TELEGRAPH AN

INFRINGEMENT-MORSE SUSTAINED-INJUNCTION AWARDED-VIOLATORS ARRESTED-THE LINE SEIZED BY THE MARSHAL THE BAIN SYSTEM-APPEAL TO SUPREME COURT-THE FINALE OF THE LINE -MORSE PATENTS OF 1840 AND 1846.

ON the 13th of June, 1845, Prof. Samuel F. B. Morse, and associates, entered into a contract with Henry O'Rielly, granting to the latter the right to construct a line of Morse's Electro-Magnetic Telegraph from the seaboard to St. Louis, and to the principal towns on the Lakes. Morse and associates inserted in the contract a prohibitory clause against O'Rielly's extending the line to New-Orleans, expressly reserving that right to the patentees. Ere the line had reached Pittsburg from Philadelphia, a misunderstanding arose between the patentees and Mr. O'Rielly. The press throughout the land were burdened with circulars of caution, proclamations of fraud, and supremacy of respective rights. In December, 1847, the line was finished to St. Louis. By the exercise of great energy, worthy of a nobler end, Mr. O'Rielly obtained the popular furor in his favor, and against the merited and just rights of Prof. Morse. The people and the press regarded Mr. O'Rielly as a public benefactor. Success crowned his efforts within the range of his contract from Morse. In the midst of this conquest, his discretion became confused; and his enmity to Morse and associates, encouraged by public manifestation, made to order, induced him to make a grand but desperate bulge towards New-Orleans, totally regardless of all propriety, the dictates of sound reason and justice to the rights of Morse, whose invention he had and was using on

the immense range of lines constructed under the contract of June, 1845. It was a leap from prosperity to adversity-from an Eden to a vortex of fatality! Whatever may have been the misunderstanding between the patentees and Mr. O'Rielly, a justification of the construction of the line to New-Orleans, and the efforts to destroy the property of Morse, can find no existence. The grand moral code of society is unstained with a word in its defence upon its bright pages!

The public and the press joined with Mr. O'Rielly at the time, and thus encouraged, he felt sanguine of success. Rapidity of construction, regardless of permanency, was the test with the public as to the relative rights. The first flash to a city or a town determined who was right and who was wrong. Thus the public became accessory in the deeds of error, in a shameful waste of the rights of an American inventor, who now, by the decree of a tribunal, elevated above the poisoned fangs of sordid minds, proclaim to the world, through the heralds of the Supreme Court of the first nation on earth, that Morse is the true and original inventor of that grand and most wonderful art-the ELECTRO-MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH.

About the 23d of December, 1847, after the failure of other efforts, Hon. Amos Kendall and Hon. F. O. J. Smith, feeling provoked at the unwarrantable proceedings of Mr. O'Rielly, contracted with William Tanner and Tal. P. Shaffner, of Kentucky, to construct a line of Telegraph from Louisville to Nashville, Tenn., and from Louisville to Lexington, Ky., the same to be a section of the line to New-Orleans, and to the East therefrom. Messrs. Kendall and Smith advanced about $20,000 in the building of this section.

As soon as the existence of the above contract was known to Mr. O'Rielly, he placed a large force to work in constructing the line south of Louisville. Here commenced the race for NewOrleans. The parties agreed to occupy separate sides of the road, to avoid confusion and conflicts among the workmen. The O'Rielly line, proclaimed as the People's Line, was completed to Nashville about the last of February, 1848. The Columbian Telegraph was announced and put in operation. The equivalent for the Relay Magnet was a series of electro-magnetic multipliers, each being composed of a magnetic needle delicately suspended, and placed within a longitudinal coil of copper wire, covered with silk thread. In this arrangement, the needle is extremely sensitive of the least current transmitted through the coil. The wire passing many times above and below the needle, tends to move its poles with the united influence of the whole, and in the same direction; so that the effect of a single wire becomes multiplied in nearly the proportion of the number of times the coil passes above and below the needle. A needle thus circumstan

ced, with a divided circle to measure the angle of deviation, constitutes an instrument termed a galvanometer, or, as it was first termed, electro-magnetic multiplier. Faraday, by means of a delicate instrument of this kind, succeeded in identifying common and Voltaic electricity as a source of electro-magnetic action. The application of this instrument as a part of the Columbian proved defective, owing, we believe, to its extreme sensitiveness. The Mutator was then introduced in its place, to perform the functions of a Relay Magnet. This instrument will hereafter be described as understood by the Court and explained by the inventor.

To enable the reader to understand the nature of the Columbian Telegraph, we copy a description of the Register, and Mutator, and history pertaining thereto, from the opinion rendered by the Hon. Thos. B. Monroe, of the District Court of the United States for the District of Kentucky, viz. :

COLUMBIAN TELEGRAPH.

"The only question under this head is, upon the identity of the Telegraph of Mr. Morse, and the Columbian Telegraph employed by the defendants. The operations by the defendants are not controverted. They put their defence exclusively on the ground that their Telegraph is not within the description and given specifications found in the schedule of the patents under which the complainants assert their exclusive right.

"Now, having given a history of the invention of Mr. Morse, and its introduction into public use, it will be but equal to give the like history of the invention of the Columbian instrument, and how it was introduced to the public.

"It happened that Mr. Morse and his associates, in their anxiety to promote the establishment of lines of Telegraphs, and extend their operations, in June, 1845, entered into a contract with this Mr. Henry O'Rielly, by which he undertook, on terms then agreed upon, to raise the capital for the construction of a line of Telegraph from Philadelphia, or other convenient point on the great seaboard line, by the way of Harrisburg, and other intermediate towns, to Pittsburg, and thence through Wheeling and Cincinnati, and such other towns and cities as the said Henry O'Rielly and his associates might elect, to St. Louis, and also to the principal towns on the Lakes.

"It turned out, that under this contract, some progress having been made in the raising of capital and constructing Telegraph lines, the parties differed in respect to the contract, in relation to what had been done, and their rights. And,

"In this controversy, Mr. O'Rielly found what induced him to determine to establish a line of Telegraph from Louisville, via