12 THE SCIENTIFIC PAPERS OF 



to work successfully. Encouraged by this success, the Prussian 

 and other German governments adopted the underground system 

 generally, and in the years 1848 and 1S49, about three thousand 

 miles were so laid. In March, 1848, Mr. Werner Siemens sub- 

 merged in the Bay of Kiel, several miles of copper wire, coated 

 with gutta-percha (by means of the cylinder machine, which he 

 had invented in 1847), for the purpose of establishing an electric 

 communication between the shore and several points in the deep 

 channel, where mines had been laid for warlike purposes ; and 

 this was undoubtedly the first attempt ever made to establish 

 submarine communications. 



In dealing with long underground line wires, Mr. "Werner 

 Siemens became acquainted with the lateral induction, or electric 

 charge of the wire ; and having fully investigated this interesting 

 phenomenon, he devised means for counteracting its disturbing 

 influence. In a former discussion at the Institution, upon a 

 paper by Mr. Window on Electric Telegraphs,* read in February, 

 1852, Mr. Siemens fully described the working of the underground 

 electric telegraph,! and the facts disclosed during that discussion 

 tended powerfully to the introduction of that system into this 

 country. 



The question of the retardation of electric waves, in passing 

 through long submarine cables, seemed still to be involved in 

 mystery. Professor Thomson, in his paper read at the meeting of 

 the British Association in 1855.J enunciated the theory, that the 

 retardation increased in proportion to the square of the length of 

 the cable ; whereas Mr. Whitehouse maintained, that the retarda- 

 tion increased only as the length, an opinion which he substanti- 

 ated by the results of experiments. Now, Mr. Siemens contended, 

 that Mr. Whitehouse's experiments did not disprove Professor 

 Thomson's theory, but rather corroborated it, if all the circum- 

 stances of the experiments in question were taken into account. 

 It had been supposed, that the increasing resistance in long con- 

 ductors might be overcome by proportionately increasing the 



* Vide Minutes of Proceedings of the Institute of Civil Engineers. Vol. XI 

 pp. 299-329. 



t Ibid. pp. 362-366. Vide ante, pp. 5-11. 



J Vide Report of the Twenty-fifth Meeting of the British Association, Trans- 

 actions of Sections, p. 21. 



