Some of them stood higher than others.

But the genius of invention had not recognized them.

There was needed an inventor.

Now what sort of a want is this?
"There was required a rare combination of qualities and conditions.

There must be ingenuity in the adaptation of available means to desired ends; there must be the genius to see through non-essentials to the fundamental principle on which success depends; there must be a kind of skill in manipulation; great patience and pertinacity; a certain measure of culture, and the inventor of a recording telegraph must be capable of being inspired by the grandeur of the thought of writing, figuratively speaking, with a pen a thousand miles long--with the thought of a postal system without the element of time.