I did not feel, therefore, at liberty to expend the public moneys in useless experiments on a plan which seemed to be already settled as effective in England.

Hence I fixed upon this mode as one supposed to be the best.

It prosecuted till the winter of 1843-44.

It was abandoned, among other reasons, in consequence of ascertaining that, in the process of inserting the wire into the leaden tubes (which was at the moment of forming the tube from the lead at melting heat), the insulating covering of the wires had become charred, at various and numerous points of the line, to such an extent that greater delay and expense would be necessary to repair the damage than to put the wire on posts.
"In my letter to the Secretary of the Treasury, of September 27, 1837, one of the modes of laying the conductors for the Telegraph was the present almost universal one of extending them on posts set about two hundred feet apart.

This mode was adopted with success." The sentence in the letter of September 27, 1837, just referred to, reads as follows: "If the circuit is laid through the air, the first cost would, doubtless, be much lessened.