360 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tion of the cables and the mechanical arrangements for submersion, that though 

 many difficulties presented themselves they were all, in 1866, triumphantly 

 overcome. It was on his return from the submersion of the 1866 cable, 

 and the raising and the completion of the 1865 cable, that the honor of knight- 

 hood was conferred on him along with others of his distinguished fellow- 

 workers. 



''Recently Sir William Thomson has invented a new and very beautiful 

 instrument, the 'siphon recorder,' for recording signals on long submarine 

 lines. It is in use at all the telegraph-stations along the submarine line con- 

 necting England with India. It is also used on the French Atlantic Cable, 

 and on the direct United States line. Sir W. Thomson, Mr. Varley, and 

 Prof. Jenkin, combining their inventions together, have given the only system 

 by which submarine telegraphy on long lines has been carried on up to the 

 present time. 



" Sir William Thomson is an enthusiastic yachtsman and a skillful navigator. 

 His recently-published popular lecture on ' Navigation ' proves this ; and, with 

 that bright genius which enriches all with which it comes in contact, his im- 

 provements in navigation are of very high importance. The general adoption 

 of Sumner's method, now made simple for the navigator, would be a reform 

 in navigation almost amounting to a revolution, and is one most highly to be 

 desired. Sir William Thomson has also invented a new form of mariner's com- 

 pass of exquisite construction. It possesses many advantages over the best of 

 those in general use, not excluding the Standard Admiralty Compass ; but its 

 special feature is that it permits of the practical application of Sir George Airy's 

 method of correcting compasses for the permanent and temporary magnetism 

 of iron ships. He has also invented an apparatus for deep-sea sounding by 

 piano-forte wire. This apparatus is so simple and easily managed that he has 

 brought up ' bottom ' from a depth of nearly three nautical miles, sounding from 

 his own yacht, without aid of steam or any of the ordinary requisites for such 

 depths. His method was much employed in taking rapid soundings during the 

 laying of telegraph-cables along the Brazilian coast to the West Indies. It has 

 also been used with great success on the United States Submarine Survey. Ee- 

 cently, while on his way to Philadelphia, Sir W. Thomson himself was able to 

 take flying soundings, reaching the bottom in sixty-eight fathoms, from a 

 Cunard Line steamship going at full speed. 



" Sir William Thomson is a Fellow of the Eoyal Society of London and of 

 the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He has received the Eoyal Medal of the 

 former and the Keith Medal of the latter. He is also an honorary member of 

 several foreign societies. The Universities of Dublin, of Cambridge, and of 

 Edinburgh, have each conferred upon him the honorary degree of LL. D., and 

 that of Oxford the honorary degree of D. C. L. On his marriage in 1852 he gave 

 up his fellowship at St. Peter's College, Cambridge; but in 1871 his college 

 again elected him to a fellowship, which he now holds." 



