126 AXXUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



about the same distance to Yreka, connecting every town of impor- 

 tance in the State. The line will probably be extended within a year 

 as far north as Vancouver, and from there Mr. Collins proposes to 

 carry it along the north-western coast of America, and over to the 

 eastern shore of Asia. 



In this proposed extension, the Russian government has expressed 

 a great interest, and is ready to offer assistance and facilities. It has, 

 moreover, already made considerable strides in the establishment of a 

 system of telegraphy across the Asiatic continent, a line of telegraphs 

 being in the process of construction across the Ural Mountains to 

 Omsk, which, connecting Europe with Asia, will be extended in 1863 

 to Irkutsk, and will connect the Russian ports through the Sea of 

 Japan and the Arnoor. In the following year, it is expected that 

 an uninterrupted telegraphic communication will exist between St. 

 Petersburg and the Pacific. So far, assuming that the projects of 

 the Russian government will be realized, no difficulties seem to lie 

 in the way of sending telegraphic messages with requisite dispatch 

 from Europe to the shores of the Pacific Ocean. The Pacific Ocean 

 as it passes northward gradually narrows itself till it terminates in 

 the channel wlnV.i separates the Asiatic and American continents. 

 This channel, known by the name of Behring Straits, is at its nar- 

 rowest point about fifty miles broad. Regarding solely from a sub- 

 marine point of view the proposed line of telegraphic communication, 

 this would seem the most favorable point at which to connect the con- 

 tinents. The adjacent countries, however, clad in perpetual ice, are 

 uninhabitable, and the establishment of telegraph stations, or aerial 

 lines (wires supported on poles), across them would be impracticable. 

 It is out of the question, therefore, to go so far north. At a point fur- 

 ther south, however, though the distance between the opposite coast 

 is as great as that between Ireland and Newfoundland, opportunities 

 are presented eminently favorable for the establishment of telegraphic 

 communication. A range of islands, called the Aleutian Islands, are 

 scattered over the intervening space. A telegraphic cable, it is con- 

 tended, might with ease be laid down between those islands and the 

 fnain land on either side. Two modes present themselves of accom- 

 plishing this object. The one by making each island, as it is in turn 

 traversed, available for the establishment of aerial lines, and adopting 

 the submarine system only where absolutely necessary, namely, in 

 connecting the several islands with each other, and the group with 

 the main land. The other consists in adopting the submarine system 

 throughout, and carrying the cable along the coasts of the islands, in- 

 stead of across them. The former plan is condemned as impractica- 

 ble, and the latter proposed as the safest, though most expensive mode 

 of proceeding. 



From this rapid glance, therefore, it will be seen that the idea of 

 telegraphic communication with the Old World is in a fair way to be 

 realized in the course of a few years: 



