ORIGIX AND DEVELOPMENT OF ENGINEERING. 41 



would enable the inhabitants of Europe to converse with the Great 

 Moo-ul little thought that in less than a century a conversation be- 

 tween persons at points so far distant would be possible. Still less 

 did those, who saw in the following year messages sent from one room 

 to another by Lesage in the presence of Frederick of Prussia, realize 

 that they had before them the germ of one of the most extraordinary 

 inventions among the many that will render this century famous. I 

 should weary you were I to follow the slow steps by which the electric 

 telegraph of to-day was brought to its present state of efficiency ; but 

 yet within how short a period of time has all the wonderful progress 

 been achieved ! How incredulous the world a few yexirs ago would 

 have been if then told of the marvels which in so short a space of time 

 were to be accomplished by its agency! It is not long ago 1823 

 that Mr. (now Sir Francis) Ronald, one of the early pioneers in this field 

 of science, published a description of an electric telegraph. He com- 

 municated his views to Lord Melville, and that nobleman was obliging 

 enough to reply that the subject should be inquired into; but before 

 the nature of Sir Francis Ronald's suggestions could be known, except 

 to a few, that gentleman received a reply from Mr. Barrow that " tele- 

 graphs of any kind were then wholly unnecessary, and that no other 

 than the one then in use would be adopted;" the one then in use 

 being the old semaphore, which, crowning the tops of hills between 

 London and Portsmouth, seemed perfection to the Admiralty of that 

 day. The telegraphic system of the world comprises almost a com- 

 plete girdle round the earth ; and it is probable that the missing link 

 will be supplied by a cable between San Francisco, in California, and 

 Yokohama, in Japan. How resolute and courageous those who en- 

 gaged in submarine telegraphy have been will appear from the fact 

 that, though we have now 50,000 miles of cable in use, to get at this 

 result nearly 70,000 miles were constructed and laid. 



Of railways the progress has been enormous ; but I do not know 

 that in a scientific point of view a railway is so marvelous in its 

 character as the electric telegraph. The results, however, of the con- 

 struction and use of railways are more extensive and wide spread, and 

 their utility and convenience brought home to a larger portion of man- 

 kind. The British Association is peripatetic, and without railways its 

 meetings, if held at all, would, 1 fear, be greatly reduced in numbers. 

 Moreover, you have all an interest in them ; you all demand to be car- 

 ried safely, and you insist on being carried fast. I shall not enter on 

 a history of the struggles which preceded the opening of the first rail- 

 way. They were brought to a successful- issue by the determination 

 of a few able and far-seeing men. The names of Thomas Gray and 

 Joseph Sandars, of William James and Edward Pease, should always 

 be remembered in connection with the early history of railways, for 

 it was they who first made the nation familiar with the idea. There 

 is no fear that the name of Stephenson will be forgotten, whose prac- 



