CHAPTER XXV.
JUNE, 1838--JANUARY 21, 1839 Arrival in England .-- Application for letters patent .-- Cooke and Wheatstone's telegraph .-- Patent refused .-- Departure for Paris .-- Patent secured in France .-- Earl of Elgin .-- Earl of Lincoln .-- Baron de Meyendorff .-- Russian contract .-- Return to London .-- Exhibition at the Earl of Lincoln's .-- Letter from secretary of Lord Campbell, Attorney-General.
-- Coronation of Queen Victoria .-- Letters to daughter .-- Birth of the Count of Paris .-- Exhibition before the Institute of France .-- Arago; Baron Humboldt .-- Negotiations with the Government and Saint-Germain Railway .-- Reminiscences of Dr.Kirk .-- Letter of the Honorable H.L.

Ellsworth .-- Letter to F.O.J.

Smith .-- Dilatoriness of the French.
It seems almost incredible to us, who have come to look upon marvel after marvel of science and invention as a matter of course, that it should have taken so many years to convince the world that the telegraph was a possibility and not an iridescent dream.

While men of science and a few far-sighted laymen saw that the time was ripe for this much-needed advance in the means of conveying intelligence, governments and capitalists had held shyly aloof, and, even now, weighed carefully the advantages of different systems before deciding which, if any, was the best.

For there were at this time several different systems in the field, and Morse soon found that he would have to compete with the trained scientists of the Old World, backed, at last, by their respective governments, in his effort to prove that his invention was the simplest and the best of them all.