324 Transactions . — Miscellaneous . 



lords' dues being more equitably assessed according to the 

 profits. It is only by the hearty co-operation of all parties — 

 lords (owners of the soil), adventurers, and working miners 

 — that the industry can be carried on, which will now be done 

 for the first time in mining in Cornwall under a limited lia- 

 bility company. 



In waiting this paper for you I have culled from a few 

 available sources, works both old and new — from Camden's 

 " Britannia " (a ponderous folio first published in 1586, and 

 the fourth and corrected edition in 1722), a veritable literary 

 mine of learning, to sundry small serials of the present year — 

 in order the better to support my own views and observations, 

 made more than half a century ago, with undoubted modern 

 authorities, and by so doing make my paper the more varied 

 and generally interesting. 



Art. XXXVIII.— reZe^rap/i Gables. 

 By C. J. Cooke. 



\Read before the Haiuke's Bay Philosophical Institute.'] 



The subject of telegraph cables is one of considerable interest 

 to myself, as I spent some years in testing cables electrically, 

 both during manufacture and the laying in South American 

 waters and among some of the islands of the West Indies. 

 Our subject divides itself into four branches — the history of 

 submarine telegraphy, the manufacture of the cables, their 

 laying, and their working. 



I. History. 



The electric telegraph dates from the year 1837, and for 

 some years after only land-lines were in use. Some ten or 

 twelve years later Faraday suggested the use of guttapercha 

 as an insulator for submarine lines. This substance was 

 unknown in Europe before 1843. Faraday's suggestion was 

 acted on, and a telegraph cable was laid in 1850. This 

 prompt recognition of the value of guttapercha adds another 

 to the many instances on record of the benefits of scientific 

 investigation to human progress. Guttapercha is a very suit- 

 able substance as an insulator for telegraph cables ; it is 

 tough, flexible, will stand a knock, a sliake, or a strain, is 

 thoroughly impervious to water, and is unacted upon by salt- 

 water. Of the different materials used as insulators in various 

 descriptions of electrical apparatus, some, as glass and porce- 



