CHAPTER XXXVI.
AUGUST 28, 1856--SEPTEMBER 16, 1858 Berlin .-- Baron von Humboldt .-- London, successful cable experiments with Whitehouse and Bright .-- Banquet at Albion Tavern .-- Flattering speech of W.F.

Cooke .-- Returns to America .-- Troubles multiply .-- Letter to the Honorable John Y.Mason on political matters .-- Kendall urges severing of connection with cable company .-- Morse, nevertheless, decides to continue .-- Appointed electrician of company .-- Sails on U.S.S.

Niagara .-- Letter from Paris on the crinoline .-- Expedition sails from Liverpool .-- Queenstown harbor .-- Accident to his leg .-- Valencia .-- Laying of cable begun .-- Anxieties .-- Three successful days .-- Cable breaks .-- Failure .-- Returns to America .-- Retires from cable enterprise .-- Predicts in 1858 failure of apparently successful laying of cable .-- Sidney E.Morse .-- The Hare and the Tortoise .-- European testimonial: considered niggardly by Kendall .-- Decorations, medals, etc., from European nations .-- Letter of thanks to Count Walewski.
His good democratic eyes a trifle dazzled by all this imperial magnificence, Morse left St.Petersburg and, with his party, journeyed to Berlin.

What was to him the most interesting incident of his visit to that city is thus described:-- "_August 23._ To-day I went to Potsdam to see Baron Humboldt, and had a delightful interview with this wonderful man.

Although I had met with him at the soirees of Baron Gerard, the distinguished painter, in Paris in 1822, and afterward at the Academy of Sciences, when my Telegraph was exhibited to the assembled academicians in 1838, I took letters of introduction to him from Baron Gerolt, the Prussian Minister.