760 



TELEGRAPH. ELECTRIC. 



the Sea of Okhotsk. May 23, 1863, he ob- 

 tained from the Russian Government an authori- 

 zation of the proposed line through its territory 

 on both sides of the Pacific, a distance of about 

 5,000 miles, with a grant of the exclusive right 

 to maintain such line for thirty-three years; 

 and February 9, 1864, a similar authorization 

 and grant from the British Government for the 

 continuation of such line through British Col- 

 umbia to the northern frontier of the United 

 States, a distance of about five hundred miles. 

 A third memorial of Mr. Collins on the subject 

 to the United States Congress was presented in 

 the Senate, April 12, 1864, by the Hon. Z. Chan- 

 dler, chairman of the Committee of Commerce 

 of that body; and to this the Hon. "William 

 H. Seward, Secretary of State, replied in an 

 elaborate and instructive paper, in which, dis- 

 cussing the questions of the feasibility of the 

 proposed line, its utility, and its claim to Gov- 

 ernment patronage, he is led upon all these 

 points to decidedly affirmative conclusions. 

 He states, among other particulars, that the 

 length of the line would be about six thousand 

 and forty miles ; that the highest elevation on 

 the whole line, occurring in the Rocky Moun- 

 tains within the United States, is not so great 

 as that of the Sierra Nevada where crossed by 

 the Pacific Telegraph ; and that the line be- 

 tween St. Petersburg and Archangel on the 

 White Sea, as well as that around the Gulf of 

 Bothnia, both of which reach latitudes as high 

 as any part of the proposed line would do, are 

 maintained in operation without difficulty. 

 The length of cable required at Behring's Strait 

 would be about forty miles. The waters are 

 about one hundred and eighty feet deep, and 

 are frozen through one-half the year ; but it is 

 believed that the safety of the cable would not 

 be endangered by the ice. It may be added 

 that the cold, dry air of high latitudes, as well 

 as snow and ice, are highly non-conducting, 

 and so favor insulation and the rapid transmis- 

 sion of the electric current. Little seems to be 

 feared on the score of interference by the sparse 

 population, Indian and Tartar, along the route, 

 unless, as Mr. Cochrane suggests, it be in the 

 case of certain unsubdued tribes in Russian 

 America, toward Behring's Strait. If the over- 

 land line be constructed, and the Atlantic cable 

 laid down, with success, they will together 

 serve to complete a telegraphic circuit around 

 the earth between the parallels of 42 and 65 

 north latitude. In accordance with Mr. Sew- 

 ard's recommendation, an act of Congress was 

 passed, approved July 1, 1864, granting to Mr. 

 Collins the right of way across the public lands, 

 with the right to take therefrom materials for 

 constructing the same, and the use of a national 

 vessel, officered and equipped, to make surveys 

 and soundings and to aid in prosecuting the 

 work. The act requires, further, "That the 

 rate of charges for public or private messages 

 shall not exceed on said line the average usual 

 rates in Europe and America for the same ser- 

 vice, or such rates as shall be ascertained and 



fixed by a convention between the United States., 

 Russia, and Great Britain." 



The interval requiring to be spanned by the 

 wire of the overland line, materially reduced at 

 the western extremity by the prospective early 

 completion of the Siberian telegraph to its 

 terminus, has been not less so at the eastern, by 

 lines constructed within the past few years. 

 The Western Union Telegraph Company, under 

 the lead of its indefatigable president, Hiram 

 Sibley, Esq., of Rochester, N. Y., completed in 

 1861 a telegraph line connecting the more east- 

 erly net-work of the continent with the Cali- 

 fornia wires at San Francisco ; and a north- 

 ward extension of the State line, later carried 

 along the Pacific coast, had in November, 1864, 

 been constructed to Olympia, on the south of 

 Puget's Sound, and thence to Victoria, on Van- 

 couver's Island. Immediately upon the passage 

 of the act of Congress above referred to, Mr. 

 Collins closed an arangement with the Western 

 Union Co., assigning to it the Russian and Brit- 

 ish concessions, the company on its part assum- 

 ing the construction and operation under the 

 name of the "Western Union Extension" of 

 the overland intercontinental line, and in accord- 

 ance with the grants already named. March 

 7th, 1865, Col. Charles S. Bulkley, engineer-in- 

 chief of the overland line, sailed with his party 

 from San Francisco for New Archangel, on 

 Sitka Island, the capital of Russian America. 

 A detachment was to be landed at Victoria, to 

 complete a small break in the line between that 

 point and New Westminster, on Frazer River, 

 in British Columbia a matter, probably, of 

 some three weeks' labor. At least three 

 vessels, carrying the needful supplies and 

 materials, will be engaged in the work of the 

 expedition, the entire land and naval force of 

 which will number not less than fifteen hun- 

 dred men. 



The present intention of the company is, if 

 practicable, to make the overland line an ex- 

 tension of that from San Francisco to New 

 Westminster. Starting from the point last 

 named, they will probably carry the line to 

 some distance up Frazer River, and thence 

 along a somewhat inland course, taking in the 

 way the Finlay branch of Peace River, and the 

 Pelly River, passing thence to and along the 

 Yukan, and then down the Kvichpak, into 

 which it flows, nearly or quite to the mouth of 

 the latter. Thence the line may pass to Cape 

 Prince of Wales, across Behring's Strait to East 

 Cape, from that point around the Gulf of Ana- 

 dir, down the coast, across the head of the 

 peninsula of Kamtschatka to Penjinsk Gulf, and 

 thence around the Sea of Okhotsk to its ter- 

 minus at Nicolavsky. Russian preferences, it 

 is said, indicate a route from the end of the 

 Siberian line by cable across the Okhotsk Sea 

 to Petropaulovsky, or else proceeding to the 

 same point by submarine and land lines by way 

 of Saghalien, Yesso, and the Kurile Islands, 

 thence in like manner by Behring and Copper 

 Islands and the Aleutian Islands to Alaska, on 



