394 Mr, J. W, Brett, [March 20, 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, March 20. 



His Grace the Duke op Northumberland, K.G. F.R.S. 

 President R.I. in the Chair.* 



John Watkins Brett, Esq. M.R.I. 

 On the Submarine Telegraph. 



I PURPOSE this evening to give you a brief sketch of the part I 

 liave taken in the promotion of submarine telegraphs, and shall 

 strictly confine myself to a narrative of this enterprise, and some 

 of the difficulties I have had to encounter at different stages of 

 their progress. 



It has been stated by some that I had sought, or attempted 

 to appropriate to myself, the honour of the invention, of the sub- 

 marine telegraph. I will here state, that my first idea of sub- 

 marine telegraphs arose out of a conversation with my brother early 

 in 1845, when discussing the system of electric telegraphs, as then 

 recently established between London and Slough ; and, in consider- 

 ing the practicability of an entire underground communication, the 

 question arose between us, "If possible underground, why not under 

 water ? " and " If under water, why not along the bed of the ocean ? " 

 The 'possibility of a submarine telegraph then seized upon my 

 mind with a positive conviction ; and I was ignorant until three or 

 four years since that a line across the Channel had been previously 

 projected by that talented philosopher. Professor Wheatstone,"f (who, 

 it will be remembered, with Mr. Cooke, first introduced the electric 

 telegraph into this country,) and also of the experiments by fric- 

 tional electricity during the last century, to send a current across 

 rivers. 



It is now nearly twelve years since (June 1845) my brother and 

 I entered, in our joint names, at the Government Registration 

 Office, a project for uniting America with Europe, by the very 

 route now adopted ; and in July of the same year submitted to the 

 Government a proposition for uniting our Colonies with Great 

 Britain, offering to Sir Geo. Cockburn, First Lord of the Admiralty, 

 (to whom I had been referred by Sir Robert Peel,) as a first 



* H.R.H. The Prince of Wales was present. 



t The original plans of Professor Wheatsone's project of a Sub-marine 

 Electric Telegraph between Dover and Calais, drawn in 1840, were exhibited 

 in the Library. 



