[6] Nor did La Condamine probably suspect that the small bottle of
india-rubber, which he brought with him on his return from a scientific
tour to America, and passed round as a curiosity to his colleagues
of the French academy, was actually filled with a liquid destined
to become of the most extensive application to different branches of
industry; aye, a liquid without which the submarine telegraph would
simply have remained an impossibility up to the present day.
[7] Such photographs have been produced in Italy since the third
edition of this work appeared in the original text.