Iron wire, coated with zinc, or "galvanised," as it is terme_Curiosities of Civilization

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.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

half-years |Telegraph| of | of | |

----------------|---------|------|--------|-----------|----------------

| | | | £. s. d.|

| | | | |

June, 1850 | 1,684 | 6,730| 29,245 |20,436 10 0|4 per Cent. per

| | | | | Ann.

December, 1850 | 1,786 | 7,200| 37,389 |23,087 13 9|4 per Cent. per

| | | | | Ann.

June, 1851 | 1,965 | 7,900| 47,259 |25,529 12 4|{6 per Ct. per

| | | | | Ann.

| | | | |{& 2 per Ct.

December, 1851 | 2,122 |10,650| 53,957 |24,336 8 10|6 per Cent. per

| | | | | Ann.

June, 1852 | 2,502 |12,500| 87,150 |27,437 4 8|6 per Cent. per

| | | | | Ann.

December, 1852 | 3,709 |19,560|127,987 |40,087 18 2|6-1/2 per Cent.

June, 1853 | 4,008 |20,800|138,060 |47,265 16 3|6-1/2 per Cent.

December, 1853 | 4,409 |24,340|212,440 |56,919 0 1|7 per Cent. per

| | | | | Ann.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

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 be cognizant 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 it _must_ be 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 from Liverpool, 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 traverse with

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 170,000_l._ 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 of letters? 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 of thirty 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:--

[Illustration: Fig. 7.]

When the cable at length came near the French coast, it was found to be,

in consequence of this unintentional _detour_, 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 herself _en rapport_ with 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 and

Whitehead 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 Calais

_viâ_ Paris 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 2_s._ 10-1/2_d._ Of the nature of the

messages sent we can form a very good idea by the following classification

of a hundred dispatches:--

Government 2

Stock-jobbing 50

Commercial 31

Newspaper 4

Family affairs 13

----

100

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

miles of telegraph, which puts the greater part of her extensive empire

in communication with Vienna.

Iron wire, coated with zinc, or "galvanised," as it is termed, to prevent