“Eastern War—Battle on the Danube—From Evening Edition of the ‘Morning Chronicle.’“Vienna, Saturday, April 8th.“The journalFremden Blattannounces, under date of Bucharest, 4th April, that a great battle was being fought at Rassova, about midway between Hirsova and Silistria, in the Dobrudscha. The result was not known. Mustapha Pasha is at the head of 50,000 men.”
“Eastern War—Battle on the Danube—From Evening Edition of the ‘Morning Chronicle.’
“Vienna, Saturday, April 8th.
“The journalFremden Blattannounces, under date of Bucharest, 4th April, that a great battle was being fought at Rassova, about midway between Hirsova and Silistria, in the Dobrudscha. The result was not known. Mustapha Pasha is at the head of 50,000 men.”
Arrived at the above-mentioned places, swifter than a rocket could fly the distance, like a rocket it bursts, and is again carried by the diverging wires into a dozen neighbouring towns. The announcement we have quoted comes opportunely to remind us that intelligence thus hastily gathered and transmitted has also its drawbacks, and is not so trustworthy as the news which starts later and travels slower. The “great battle of Rassova” has not yet been fought, and the general action announced through the telegraph was only a sanguinary skirmish.
The telegraphic organization of London, meagre as it is at present, would form alone a curious paper: “a province covered with houses,” it demands a special arrangement, and accordingly we see day by day new branches opened within its precincts, by which means every part of the metropolis is being put in communication with the country and Europe.
The branch stations are, London Docks (main entrance); No. 43, Mincing Lane; General Post Office, St. Martin’s-le-Grand; No. 30, Fleet Street; No. 448, West Strand; No. 17a, Great George Street, Westminster; No. 89, St. James’s Street; No. 1, Park Side, Knightsbridge; No. 6, Edgeware Road; Great Western Railway Station; London and North-Western Railway Station; Great Northern Railway Station; Highbury Railway Station; Eastern Counties’ Railway Station; Blackwall Railway Station; London and Brighton and South Coast Railway Station; and the London and South-Western Railway Station; of these only two are open night and day. The central office, strange as it might appear, is closed at half-past 8 o’clockP.M., and its wires are put in connection with those at the Charing Cross Station, which takes upon itself the night work—asingular proof, by the way, that London proper is deserted shortly after the hours of business are over. The Eastern Counties’ office is also open at night, and forms the East End office of the company. These stations communicate with the central office in Lothbury, and form, in fact, direct feeders to it, just as the hundred suckers do to the zoophyte.
We have yet, however, to notice the special telegraphic communication which exists in the metropolis between place and place, either for governmental purposes or for social convenience. The most curious of these lines is the wire between the Octagon Hall in the new Houses of Parliament and the St. James’s Street Commercial station. They should name this line from the “whipper-in” of the House, for it is nothing more than a call-wire for members. The company employ reporters during the sitting of Parliament, to make an abstract from the gallery of the business of the two Houses as it proceeds; and this abstract is forwarded, at very short intervals, to the office in St. James’s Street, whereit is set up and printed, additions being made to the sheet issued as the MS. comes in. This flying sheet is posted half-hourly to the following clubs and establishments:—Arthur’s; Carlton; Oxford and Cambridge; Brook’s; Conservative; United Service; Athenæum; Reform; Traveller’s; United University; Union; and White’s; hourly to Boodle’s Club and Prince’s Club; and half-hourly to the Royal Italian Opera. The shortest possible abstract is of course supplied—just sufficient, in fact, to enable the after-dinner M.P. so to economize his proceedings as to be able to finish his claret, and yet be in time for the ministerial statement, or to count in the division.
The wire to the Opera is a still more curious example of the social services the new power is destined to perform. An abstract of the proceedings of Parliament, similar to the above, but inwriting, is posted, during the performance, in the lobby; and Young England has only to lounge out between the acts to know if Disraeli or Lord John Russell is up, and whether he may sit out the piece, or must hasten down to Westminster. The Opera House even communicates with the Strand Office, sothat messages may be sent from thence to all parts of the kingdom. The Government wires go from Somerset House to the Admiralty, and thence to Portsmouth and Plymouth by the South-Western and Great Western Railways; and these two establishments are put in communication, by means of subterranean lines, with the naval establishments at Deptford, Woolwich, Chatham, Sheerness, and with the Cinque Ports of Deal and Dover. They are worked quite independently of the Company, and the messages are sent in cipher, the meaning of which is unknown, even to the telegraphic clerks employed in transmitting it. In addition to the wires already spoken of, street branches run from Buckingham Palace and Scotland Yard (the head police-office) to the station at Charing Cross, and thence on to Founder’s Court; whilst the Post-office, Lloyd’s, Capel Court, and the Corn Exchange communicate directly with the Central Office.
The function, then, of the Central Office is to receive and redistribute communications. Of the manner in which these ends are accomplished nothing can be gained from a glance round the instrument-rooms. You see no wires coming into or emerging from them; you ask for a solution of the mystery, and one of the clerks leads you to the staircase and opens the door of what looks like a long wooden shoot placed perpendicularly against the wall. This is the great spinal cord of the establishment, consisting of a vast bundle of wires, insulated from each other by gutta percha. One set of these conveys the gathered-up streams of intelligence from the remote ends of the continent and the farthest shores of Britain, conducts them through London by the street lines underneath the thronging footsteps of the multitude, and ascends with its invisible despatches directly to the different instruments. Another set is composed of the wires that descend into the battery-chamber. It is impossible to realize the fact by merely gazing upon this brown and dusty-looking bundle of threads; nevertheless so it is, that they put us in communication with no less than 4,409 miles of telegraph, which is coterminous with the railway system of the island, and forms a complete network over itsentire surface, with the exception of the highlands of North Wales. It penetrates already into the wilds of Scotland, as we see the wire is carried on from Aberdeen to Balmoral.
The physiologist, minutely dissecting the star-fish, shows us its nervous system extending to the tip of each limb, and descants upon the beauty of this arrangement, by which the central mouth is informed of the nutriment within its reach. The telegraphic system, already developed in England, has rendered her as sensitive, to the utmost extremities, as the star-fish. Day by day and hour by hour everything that happens of importance is immediately referred to its centre at Lothbury, and this centre returns the service by spreading the information afresh in every direction. Thus, should an enemy appear off our coast, his presence, by the aid of the fibre, is immediately felt at the Admiralty, and an immediate reply sends out the fleet in chase. Should a riot occur in the manufacturing districts, the local authorities communicate with the Home Office, and orders are sent down to put the distant troops in motion. Does a murderer escape, the same wire makes the fact known to Scotland Yard, and from thence word is sent to the distant policemen to intercept him in his flight. The arm is scarcely uplifted quicker to ward off a sudden blow—the eye does not close with more rapidity upon an unexpected flood of light, than, by the aid of the telegraph, actions follow upon impressions conveyed along the length and breadth of the land. But, says our reader, suppose these wires should be severed or damaged, your whole line is paralyzed; and how are you to find out where the fault may be? Against these eventualities human foresight has provided: by testing from station to station along the line, the office soon knows how far the wires are perfect; and if the breach of continuity should be in the subterranean street wires, there are iron testing-posts at every 500 yards distance, by the aid of which the workman knows where to make his repairs. Whilst all is being made right again, however, a curious contrivance is brought into play, in order to keep the communication open. Every one is acquainted with the action of the railway “switch,”by which a train is enabled to leave one line of rails and run on to another. The telegraph has its switch also, and thus a message can be transferred from one line to another, or can be sent rightthrouyhto any locality, without making a stoppage at the usual resting-place on its way. By this device, then, the “sick wires” can be altogether avoided. Suppose, for instance, that some accident had happened to the direct Bristol line, and it would not work in consequence, then the clerk at the Lothbury station would signal to Birmingham to switch the wire through to Bristol, or, in other words, to put him in communication with that place; this done, the message would fly along the North-Western line, look in at the Birmingham station, and immediately be off down the Midland wire to Bristol, arriving, to all perception, in the same latitude as quickly as though it had gone direct by the Great Western wire. Every large station is provided with a switching apparatus, and the Lothbury office has several. Here also there is a very curious contrivance called the “testing-box,” which enables the manipulator to connect any number of batteries to a wire, in order to give extra power, without going into the battery vault.
These switches, testing, and battery boxes are of great service in certain conditions of the atmosphere. For instance, a thunderstorm, or more often a fog, will now and then so affect the conducting power of a wire, working through a long distance, that it is found impossible to send a message along it, in which case the clerk “dodges” the passing storm or fog by switching the dispatch round the country through a fine-weather wire. If however the foggy weather should continue, the manipulator has only to go to the battery box and couple on one or more batteries, just as fresh engines are put on a train going up an incline when the rails are “greasy.” By thus increasing the power of the electric current the message is driven through the worst weather. Sometimes as many as six or eight 24-plate batteries are necessary to speed a signal to Glasgow. The more general way in such cases, however, is to transmit the dispatch to some intermediate station, where the message is repeated.
Let us now descend into the battery vaults—two long narrowchambers, situated in the basement of the building. Who would think that in this quiet place, night and day, a power was being generated that exerted its influence to the very margin of this seagirt isle, nay, invaded the territories of Holland, Belgium, and France? Who would think that those long dusty boxes on the shelves were making scores of iron tongues wag hundreds of miles off? There are upwards of sixty Daniel’s batteries in full employment in these vaults. They are ranked as sixes, twelves, and twenty-fours, according to the number of their elements or plates; and just like guns, the higher they rank the further they carry. The powerful twenty-fours work the long ranges of wire, and the smaller batteries the shorter circuits. Of course some of these batteries have harder work to do than others, and the “twenty-fours” working the North-Western line have much the busiest time of it. Considering the work done by them, their maintenance is not very costly. A twenty-four, when in full work, does not consume its zinc plates under three months, and a gill of sulphuric acid, diluted, is its strong but rather moderate allowance of liquid per month. Other batteries of the same force are satisfied with 1 lb. of sulphate of copper per month, with a little sulphate of zinc, and salt and water. The entire amount of electric power employed by the Company throughout the country is produced by 8000 12-plate batteries, or 96,000 cells, which are lined with 1,500,000 square inches of copper, and about the same of zinc. To work these batteries six tons of acid is yearly consumed, and fifty-five tons of sand; the principal use of the latter is to prevent the chemicals from slopping about, and the metal plates from getting oxidised too rapidly. The language of the “wire,” with respect to the working of the telegraph, is very curious. For instance, when a distant station-clerk finds that a battery is not up to its work, by the weak action of the needles, he sends word that it requires “refreshment,” and it is accordingly served with its gill of aquafortis, and, totally opposed to the doctrines of temperance, a “long-lived battery” owes its vitality to the strongest drink.
We have followed the wires down to one pole of theirrespective batteries, and now we have to pursue them out of the opposite pole until they take to “earth.” No electricity will flow from the positive pole Z of the battery (Fig. 2) unless the wire D K A B is connected, either by being itself unbroken, or by the interposition of some other conductor where a gap occurs, to the negative pole C. In the earlier telegraphs it was usual to have a return-wire to effect this purpose. But, strange as it may sound, it was discovered that the earth itself would convey the current back to the negative pole, and thus an entire length of wire was saved. Accordingly the earth completes the two hundred and odd different circuits, which pass their loops, as it were, through the central office. In order to get a “good earth” a hole was dug deep in the foundations, until some moist ground was found,drysoil being a very bad conductor, and into this a cylinder of copper, four inches in diameter and 40 lbs. in weight, was sunken, surrounded by a mass of sulphate of copper in crystals. All the earth wires of the establishment were then put in connection with this mass of metal, or earth plate.
Fig. 6
The non-scientific reader will perhaps require a figure to explain to him our meaning, when we say that the earth is capable of completing the “circuit.” In the accompanying diagram (No. 6) we have a battery, U V, in the central office in London, deflecting a needle N, say in Liverpool. The fluid passes from the positive pole of the battery U, traverses the wire of the North-Western Railway, and after working the telegraph in Liverpool, descends into the earth by the wire B, which has a metal or earth-plate attached to it. From this point the electric fluid starts homewards, through the solid ground, and finding out the earth-plate[38]under the foundationsat Lothbury, ascends along the wire A, into the negative pole of the battery V. By reversing the current, it flows first through the earth from V A to B, and returns by the wire to the opposite pole U.
Nothing in telegraphy impresses the thoughtful mind more than the fact that the electric fluid, after spanning, maybe, half the globe, should come back to its battery, through adamantine rocks, through seas and all the diverse elements which make up the anatomy of the globe. The explanation of the phenomenon is still a matter of pure speculation. Indeed, it may be objected that our flight of the electric principle is altogether a flight of fancy—that there is in fact no flow of electricity at all, but that its progress through bodies, according to the generally received theory, is owing to opposite poles of contiguous particles acting upon each other. The hypothesis, however, first received in science gives birth to its language, which usually continues the same, although it may have ceased to be an adequate expression of the current doctrine of philosophers.
The traveller, as he flies along in the train, and looks out upon the wires which seem stretched against the sky like the ledger lines of music, little dreams of these invisible conductors that are returning the current through the ground. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, indeed, the wires and their sustaining posts represent to the spectator the entire telegraph. The following conversation between two navigators, overheard the other day by a friend, gives the most popular view of the way the telegraph works. “I say, Jem, how do ’emjawalong them wires?” “Why, Bill, they pulls at one end, and rings a bell at t’other.” Others again fancy that messages are conveyedby means of the vibrations of the metal, for on windy days they sometimes give out sounds like an Æolian harp: a fact which, according to Sir Francis Head, called forth the remark from a North-Western driver to his stoker, “I say, Bill, aint they a giving it to ’em at Thrapstone?” The more ignorant class of people actually believe that it conveys parcels and letters, and they sometimes carry them for transmission to the office.
Iron wire, coated with zinc, or “galvanised,” as it is termed, to prevent its rusting, is now universally used as the conductor of the electric fluid when the lines are suspended in the air. The first rain falling upon the zinc converts it into an oxide of that metal, which is insoluble in water, so that henceforth in pure air it cannot be acted upon by that element, and all further oxidation ceases. Mr. Highton says, however, that in the neighbourhood of large manufacturing towns the sulphur from the smoky atmosphere converts the oxide into a sulphate of zinc, which is soluble, and consequently the rain continually washes it off the wire. He asserts that he has had wires in this manner reduced from the eighth of an inch to the diameter of a common sewing-needle. There has been a great controversy as to the best means of insulating the wires from their supporting-poles, which would otherwise convey the electricity from the wires to the earth. There is no method known of effecting this completely, but we believe it is now decided that stoneware is the best material for the purpose, both on account of its non-conducting qualities, and the readiness with which it throws off from its surface particles of water. The latter quality is extremely important, for, in very rainy weather, if the insulator should happen to get wet, the electric fluid will sometimes make a bridge of the moisture to quit the wire, run down the post to the earth, and make a short circuit home again to its battery. Indeed, when there are many wires suspended to the same pole on the same plane, a dripping stream of water falling from an upper to a lower one will often suffice to return the current before it has done its work, much to the telegraphist’s annoyance. Not long ago, a mishap, having similar consequences, occurred on the line between Lewes and Newhaven,owing to the following very singular circumstance: a crane, in its flight through the rain, came in contact with the wires, and having threaded his long neck completely through them, the current made a short cut along his damp feathers to the wire below, and by this channel home. Moisture, however, much as it may interfere for a time with the working of a line, rarely does any permanent injury. Lightning, on the contrary if not guarded against, is capable of producing great mischief. It has been known to strike and run for miles along a wire, and, in its course, to enter station after station, and melt the delicate coils and the finer portions of the instruments into solid masses. In most cases it reverses the polarity of the needles, or renders permanent the magnetism of the electro-magnets. All these dangerous and annoying contingencies are easily avoided by the application of a simple conducting-apparatus to lead away the unwelcome visitor. The method adopted by Mr. Highton is to line a small deal box, say ten or twelve inches long, with a tin plate, and to put this plate in connection with the earth. The wire bound up in bibulous paper—which is a sufficient insulator for the low-tensioned fluid of the battery—is carried, before it enters the instrument, through the centre of the box, and is surrounded with iron fillings. The high-tensioned electricity of the lightning instantly darts from the wire, through the pores of the paper, to the million points of the finely-divided iron, and so escapes to the earth. There are, of course, many kinds of lightning conductors used on different lines, but this one is simple in its construction, and, we are given to understand, answers its purpose exceedingly well.
Notwithstanding that the Electric Telegraph Company has been established so many years, it is only just now that the public have begun to understand the use of the “wire.” The very high charges at first demanded for the transmission of a message, doubtless, made it a luxury rather than a necessary of life; and every reduction of the tariff clearly brought it within the range of a very much larger class of the community, as will be seen by the following table issued by the Company, which shows the advance of the system under its management.
It will be seen from the above what an impulse was given to the business by the reduction in the tariff which took place in December, 1851; for if we compare the messages of the half-year ending June, 1850, with those of the half-year of June, 1852, we shall find that whilst the miles of telegraph in work had not increased one-half, the messages transmitted had nearly trebled. It is only within this last year or two, however—as will be seen by the table—that a very large augmentation of business has taken place, which is doubtless owing to the public being better acquainted with its capabilities. The tariff has since been further reduced, with the result of a still further increase of the messages sent and of the money received—the profits allowing, at the present moment, of a seven per cent. dividend! The lowest point of cheapness, in our opinion, is yet very far from being reached; and it would only be a wise act on the part of the Company to at once adopt an uniform charge for messages, say of fifty words, for one shilling. If this were done, the only limit to its business would be the number of wires they could conveniently hang, for the present set would clearly be insufficient. Means should also be taken to obviate one great objection, at present felt, with respect to sending private communications by telegraph—the violation of all secrecy,—for in any case half a dozen people must becognizant of every word addressed by one person to another. The clerks of the English Electric Telegraph Company are sworn to secrecy, but we often write things that it would be intolerable to see strangers read before our eyes. This is a grievous fault in the telegraph, and itmustbe remedied by some means or other. Our own opinion is that the public would much prefer the dial telegraph, by the use of which two persons could converse with each other, without the intervention of a third party at all—or the printing step by step instrument would be equally good. At all events, some simple yet secure cipher, easily acquired and easily read, should be introduced, by which means messages might to all intents and purposes be “sealed” to any person except the recipient. We have reason to believe that Professor Wheatstone has invented a cipher of this description, which will speedily be made public. “One-eighth of the despatches between New Orleans and New York,” says Mr. Jones in his “Historical Sketch of the Electric Telegraph,” “are in cipher. For instance, merchants in either city agree upon a cipher, and if the New Orleans correspondent wishes to inform his New York friend of the prices and prospects of the cotton market, instead of saying ‘Cotton eight quarter—don’t sell,’ he may use the following:—‘Shepherd—rum—kiss—flash—dog.’”
The Company has lately made an arrangement, by which the very absurd and inconvenient necessity of being obliged to attend personally at the telegraph station with a message has been obviated. “Franked message papers,” pre-paid, are now issued, procurable at any stationers’. These, with the message filled in, can be dispatched to the office when and how the sender likes, and the Company intend very quickly to sell electric stamps, like Queen’s heads, which may be stuck on to any piece of paper, and frank its contents without further trouble. Another very important arrangement for mercantile men is the sending of “remittance messages,” by means of which money can be paid in at the central office in London, and, within a few minutes, paid out at Liverpool or Manchester, or by the same means sent up to town with the like dispatch fromLiverpool, Manchester, Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Hull, York, Plymouth, and Exeter. There is a money-order office in the Lothbury establishment to manage this department, which will, no doubt, in all emergencies speedily supersede the Government money-order office, which works through the slower medium of the Post Office.
We have spoken hitherto only of the Old Electric Telegraph Company. There are several other companies in the United Kingdom, working different patents. We have chosen, however, to describe the proceedings of the original Company, because it is the only one that has an amount of business sufficient to give it universal interest; it is the only company, in fact, that has seized the map of England in its nervous grasp, and shot its wires through every broad English shire. The European and the British Telegraph Companies have laid their lines, insulated with gutta percha and protected by iron tubes, beneath the public roads. The European Company works between Manchester, Birmingham, London, and Dover, and, by means of the two submarine cables of Dover and Calais and Dover and Ostend, puts the great manufacturing and commercial emporiums in connection with France, Belgium, and the rest of Europe by a double route. The British Telegraph Company works principally in the northern counties. Of the other lines, we need only mention at present the United Kingdom, and the English and Irish Magnetic Company, which works wires between London, Belfast, and Galway, by means of a subterranean line as far as the west coast of Scotland, and of a submarine cable stretched between Portpatrick and Donaghadee.
It will, perhaps, be a source of wonder to our readers that one company should virtually possess the monopoly of telegraphic communication in this country, but this will cease when they consider that this Company was the first to enter the field, that it came forward with a large capital, speedily secured to themselves the different lines of railway—the only paths it was then considered that telegraphs could traversewith security,—and that it bought up, one after another, most of the patents that stood any chance of competing with its own. The time is fast approaching, however, when most of these advantages will fail them, and when the Company, powerful as it is, must be prepared to encounter a severe and active competition, and that for the following reasons:—
1. The plan of bringing the wires under the public roads turns, as it were, the flank of the railroad lines.
2. The patents of the old company are year by year expiring.
3. The very large capital expended by it—upwards of 170,000l.being sunk in patent rights alone,—independently of the vast expense attaching to the first introduction of the invention, forms a dead-weight which no new company would have to bear.
In the ordinary course of events, then, the other lines at present in existence will gain strength; new companies will spring up, and the supply of a great public want will be thrown into the arena of competition. Would it not be wise for the legislature to consider the question of telegraphy in England before it is too late? We all know what the principle of reckless competition led us into in our railway system. For years opposing companies scrambled for the monopoly of certain districts, and the result was the intersection of the country with bad lines, and, in many cases, with useless double routes. Millions were spent in litigation; railway travelling became, as a natural consequence, dear; the property of the original shareholders rapidly deteriorated; and it has all ended in half a dozen powerful companies swallowing up the smaller ones; and that competition, in whose name so much was demanded, has turned out to be only “a delusion and a snare.” The conveyance of intelligence cannot safely and conveniently be left in the hands of even one company without a strict Government supervision; much less can half a dozen systems be allowed to distract the land at their own will. Indeed, the question might with propriety be asked, Is not telegraphic communication as much a function of Government as the conveyance ofletters? If the do-nothing principle is to be allowed to take its course, we shall have to go through a similar state of things to that which occurred only a few years since in the United States, when different competing lines refused to forward each other’s messages, and the whole system of telegraphic communication was accordingly dislocated. Indeed, even with the most perfect accord between different companies, the dissimilarity of instruments used by them would prove a great practical evil—as great a one, if not greater, than the break of gauge in the railway system. Messages could not be passed from one line to another, and delays as vexatious as those which occur on the continental lines would take away much of the value of the invention. It seems to us, then, that even if Parliament should refuse to interfere with the principle of competition in the case of the telegraphic communication, it should, at least, provide for the use of the same kind of instruments, and make it a fineable offence for one line to refuse to forward the messages of another.
Having done so much towards completing our telegraphic organization at home, our engineers adventurously determined to carry the wires across to the continent, and thus destroy the last remnant of that isolation to which we were forced to submit on account of our insular position. As long back as the year 1840 we find, by the Minutes of Evidence in the Fifth Report upon Railways, wherein the subject of electric telegraphy was partially examined, that, whilst Mr. Wheatstone was under examination Sir John Guest asked, “Have you tried to pass the line through water?” to which he replied, “There would be no difficulty in doing so; but the experiment has not yet been tried.” Again, on the chairman, Lord Seymour, asking, “Could you communicate from Dover to Calais in that way?” he replied, “I think it perfectly practicable.” A couple of years later the professor, indeed, engaged, and had everything in readiness, to lay a line for the Government across Portsmouth Harbour; it was not executed, however, through circumstances over which he had no control, but which were quite irrespective of the perfect feasibility of the undertaking.
We question, however, whether it would have been possible to have accomplished the feat of crossing the Channel with the electric fire before this date, as the difficulty of insulating the wires, so as to prevent the water from carrying off the electricity, would, we imagine, have been insuperable, but for the happy discovery of gutta percha, which supplied the very tough, flexible, non-conducting material the electrician sought for. Thus it might be said that the instantaneous interchange of thought between distant nations awaited the discovery of a vegetable production in the dense forests of the Eastern Archipelago. The first application of this singular substance to the insulation of electric conducting wires was made in 1847, by Lieutenant Siémens, of the Prussian artillery, for a line to cross the Rhine at Cologne.
The first submarine wire laid down was that between Dover and Cape Gris-nez, in the vicinity of Calais, belonging to the Submarine Telegraph Company. This wire, thirty miles in length, was covered with gutta percha to the diameter of half an inch, and sunk (August, 1850), as it was paid out, by the addition of clumps of lead at every sixteenth of a mile. The whole was completed and a message sent between the two countries on the same day. In the course of a month, however, the cable broke, owing to its having fretted upon a sharp ridge of rocks about a mile from Cape Gris-nez. It was now determined to make a stronger and better-constructed cable, capable of resisting all friction in this part of the Channel. The form of cable adopted for this and all other submarine telegraphs now in existence seems to have been originally suggested by Messrs. Newall and Co., of Gateshead, the wellknown wire-rope manufacturers. Instead of one, four wires, insulated by the Gutta Percha Company, were twisted together into a strand, and next “served” or enveloped in spun-yarn. This core was then covered with ten iron galvanized wires five-sixteenths of an inch in diameter, welded into lengths of twenty-four miles, and forming a flexible kind of mail. The cable was manufactured in the short space of twenty-one days. It weighed 180 tons, and formed a coil in the hold of the old hulk that carried it ofthirty feet in diameter outside, and fifteen feet inside, standing five feet high. All went well with the undertaking until about one-half had been “paid out,” when, a gale arising, unfortunately the tug-boat that towed the hulk containing the rope broke away, and vessel, wire, and all, drifted, with a racing tide, full a mile up the Channel before it could be overtaken. The consequence was, that the cable was violently dragged out of its course in the middle of the straits. What was worse, a sharp “kink,” or bend, also occurred near the Dover shore, which doubled the cable on itself, but luckily produced no serious damage. The “lie” of the submarine cable between Dover and the vicinity of Calais, at this present moment, is expressed in the following diagram:—
Fig. 7
When the cable at length came near the French coast, it was found to be, in consequence of this unintentionaldetour, at least half a mile too short. This was remedied, however, by splicing on a fresh piece; and, on securing it at Saugat, the new place of landing, fixed upon on account of its sandy shore, it was found that the communication was good, and good it has remained ever since—a proof of the admirable manner in which the wires were insulated and the cable constructed. The placing of this successful cable was superintended by Mr. Wollaston, the Company’s engineer, and by Mr. Crampton, the contractor. Mr. Wollaston, who is a nephew of the illustrious philosopher of the same name, and who also presided over the earlier attempt, will accordingly, in the annals of electricity, carry off the honours of having first laid down the ocean telegraph.
The same Company, not long afterwards, laid another cable across to Ostend. This established a connection with Europe through Belgium, and was planned to prevent this line of communication falling into the hands of another company, and was not, as was suspected at the time, a matter of political foresight on the part of the directors, to enable them to carry on their intercourse with the continent, in spite of France, supposing war should break out between the two countries. Who would have believed a short time since, in Belgium, that the day would come when it would be quicker to convey intelligence to France by way of England than directly across the frontiers? Yet such was actually the case; for, before the line was laid by land, it was a thing of very frequent occurrence for despatches from Ostend to cross the Channel to Dover by one cable, and to be immediately switched across to Calais by the other; thus paying us a momentary triangular visit underneath the rapid straits.
The notion, however, of preventing competition proved to be vain. A third cable was laid on the 30th May, 1853, between the English coast at Orfordness, near Ipswich, and the port of Schevening in Holland, and thence to the Hague. This cable is the longest at present in connection with this isle, extending 120 miles under the turbulent North Sea. It was, however, paid out during a violent gale of wind without the slightest accident, and affords the most direct means of communication with the north of Europe, and entirely commands the commercial traffic of the cities of Amsterdam and Rotterdam. The Hague cable (or cables, for there are now many, consisting of a single wire conductor each, running side by side) is the property of the International Company, a branch of the Old Electric Telegraph, and its wires go direct to the Lothbury office.
Whilst England has moored her south-eastern shores to the continent by three cables, and put herselfen rapportwith all its principal cities, her north-western extremity has been secured, after many failures, to the sister kingdom—the Electro-Magnetic Company having laid a submarine wire from Portpatrick and Donaghadee, in the neighbourhood of Belfast, and the British Electric Telegraph Company another between Portpatrick andWhitehead in Belfast Lough. England, as befits her, led the way in these adventures upon the sea with the electric fire, and the Danes, Dutch, Russians, and others, are now following in her track.
Will it be believed that in 1841, long after the electric telegraph was working in England, scientific men were seriously discussing in the French Chamber the propriety of establishing a night telegraph on the visual principle, and that when at length it was determined to call in the aid of electricity, instruments were ordered to be so constructed that signals could be given after the fashion of the old semaphore, in order that the officials might be spared the trouble of leaving their ancient ruts? The needles were accordingly displaced for a mimic post, to which moveable arms were attached and signs were transmitted by elevating or depressing them by electricity, instead of by hand. Of course this absurd system was after a while abolished, and the instrument now made use of is a modification of the dial telegraph constructed by Breguet. The first telegraph planted in France was constructed by Mr. Wheatstone, from Paris to Versailles, in 1842. The principal line is that running from CalaisviâParis to Marseilles, which puts the English Channel and the Mediterranean in communication, and transmits for us the more urgent items of the India and China mail.
Belgium and Switzerland are perhaps the best supplied of all the continental kingdoms with telegraphic communication. The Belgian lines were excellently planned and cheaply constructed, consequently their tariff is comparatively low, the average charge for a message being 3 francs 48 centimes, or about 2s.10½d.Of the nature of the messages sent we can form a very good idea by the following classification of a hundred dispatches:—
A comparison of the average division of messages in every state would afford a very fair index of the nature of the occupations of their peoples. We have attempted to obtain materials for this purpose in vain; foreign governments, as well as English companies, being very jealous of giving any information relative to their messages. The history of the telegraph in Switzerland is an evidence of what patriotic feeling is capable of accomplishing. Although by far the best and most extensive, for a mountainous country, in the world, it was constructed by the spontaneous efforts of the people. The peasantry gave their free labour towards erecting the wires and poles, the landlords found the timber and gave the right of way over their lands, and the communes provided station room in the towns. Thus the telegraph was completed, so to speak, for nothing. The peculiarity of the Swiss telegraph is that, like the great wall of China, it proceeds totally regardless of the nature of the ground. It climbs the pass of the Simplon in proceeding from Geneva to Milan; it goes over St. Gothard in its way from Lucerne to Como: it mounts the Splugen, and again it goes from Feldkirch to Inspruck by the Arlberg pass, thus ascending the great chain of the Alps as though it were only a gentle hillside. The wires course along the lakes of Lucerne, Zug, Zurich, and Constance; sometimes they are nailed to precipices, sometimes they make short cuts over unfrequented spurs of the mountains, going every way, in short, that it is found most convenient to hang them. The completion of the telegraphic system of this little republic, which stands in the same relation to Southern as Belgium does to Northern Europe, was of great consequence, as it forms the keystone between France, Prussia, Austria, Piedmont, and Italy.
In Prussia the lines are insulated in gutta percha, and buried in the ground in leaden tubes, a very costly process, but with many great advantages, in freedom from injury and atmospheric influences, over the more usual method of suspending them in the air on poles. Upwards of 4,000 miles of wire have already been laid down in this kingdom. Although Austria only commenced operations in 1847, she already possesses 4,000 milesof telegraph, which puts the greater part of her extensive empire in communication with Vienna.
Whatever injury the Eastern war might have inflicted upon the world, it at least infused fresh vigour into the telegraphic system, as, independently of the lines planned to put Constantinople in communication with the Danubian frontier, Russia has been stimulated to complete a line between St. Petersburg and Helsingfors, in the Baltic, and a continuation of the line already extending from the capital to Moscow, down to Bucharest, Odessa, and Sebastopol. One feature distinguishes the management of continental telegraphs over those of England and America: they are all, with the exception of the short line between Hamburg and Cuxhaven, possessed and worked by the different governments, who seem afraid of the use they might be put to for political purposes, and accordingly exercise a strict surveillance over all messages sent, and rigidly interdict the use of a cipher.[39]The Anglo-Saxon race, however, has far surpassed any other in the energy with which it has woven the globe with telegraphic wires. The Americans in the West and the British in the East alike emulate each other in the magnitude of their undertakings of this nature. The United States, although she came into the field long after England—her first line from Washington to Baltimore not having been completed until 1844—has far outstripped the mother country in the length of her lines, which already extend over 16,729 miles. Every portion of the Union, with the exception of California and the upper portion of the Mississippi, is covered with a network of wire.
New York and New Orleans communicate with each other by a double route—one skirting the seacoast, the other taking an inland direction by Cincinnati. These lines alone, following the sinuosities of their routes, are upwards of 2,000 miles in length.
Other lines extend as far as Quebec, in Upper Canada, so that messages may be forwarded in the course of a couple of hours from the freezing north to the burning south. The great chain of lakes which form the northern boundary of the Union is put in communication with the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, and the great valley traversed by the latter will, ere long, interchange messages with the Pacific coast,—Congress having under its consideration a plan to establish a telegraph across the continent to San Francisco, as the precursor of the proposed railroad.
This we suspect is the project of Mr. O’Reilly, the engineer who has already executed the boldest lines in America. In constructing such a line, man, not nature, is the great obstacle to be encountered. The implacable Indians inhabiting this portion of the States certainly would not pay any respect to the telegraphic wire; on the contrary, they would in all likelihood take it to bind on the heads of their scalping tomahawks. To provide against this contingency, it is proposed to station parties of twenty dragoons at stockades twenty miles apart, along the whole unprotected portion of the route; two or three of these soldiers are also to ride from post to post and carry a daily express letter across the continent.
When this project is executed, it is asserted that “European news may be published in six days on the American shores of the Pacific, on the shortened route between the old and new world.” “The shortened route,” it should be mentioned, lies between Cape Race, in Newfoundland, and Galway, in Ireland, a passage calculated to take, on the average, only five days.
It may be asked how is it that such lengths of wire, carried through thinly settled parts of the country, and sometimes through howling wildernesses, can pay? The only manner that we can account for it is the cheapness with which the telegraph is built in America, the average price being 150 dollars, or about 31l.a mile—less than a fourth part of the cost at which the early lines of the English Electric Telegraph Company were erected. Again, the low prices charged for the transmission of messages produce an amount of business whichthe lines running through thickly-inhabited England cannot boast. For instance, let us take the following advertised “specimen message,” of the latter Company, and compare the price charged for it here, with what it could be sent for in America:—