xi SCIENCE AND ARCHAEOLOGY 85 



The scheme, on the face of it, opining that the ice 

 difficulty is not serious, certainly seems to offer a great 

 advantage in breaking up the route into detachments. 

 It seems a terrible venture to lay 2000 miles at a stretch, 

 when a single flaw would spoil the whole. Supposing 

 the odds 19 to 1 that any given 100 miles would be laid 

 without accident (except such as could be easily repaired), 

 still when you come to 2000 miles the chance of success 

 is only (££) 20 = .3585, or about 2 to 1 against it. On 

 this account, I think the breaking up into much shorter 

 lengths a very great advantage. The North route has 

 also the advantage of having much less very deep water, 

 in which the risk of laying, from the strain on the cable, 

 is greatest. The cold is favourable to insulation. The 

 rate of signalling can be much greater with a series of 

 shorter lengths (not exceeding 800 miles or so) than in 

 one great length of 2000 miles, when " electrostatic 

 induction " becomes very serious. 



There remains the ice. As to this, I don't see what 

 one can do but read the opinions of experienced Arctic 

 voyagers, and use one's common sense. I would have 

 you answer this point for yourself. 



I have no doubt Wheatstone would lend you the short 

 pamphlet he lent me. 



On the S.W. Coast of Greenland (a little west of 

 the southernmost point), to judge by the accounts, the 

 cable would seem to be well protected by the existence 

 of long fiords with very deep water in the middle, less 

 deep at the two sides, so that any icebergs would ground 

 at the sides, and the cable would lie in the middle. True, 

 there is floe ice 7 feet thick ; but that, Arctic men look on 

 as a trifle. However, you had best read the pamphlet 

 for yourself. 



As for myself, I am ready to act as scientific referee 

 if others decide that the scheme shall be tried, but I do 

 not look on myself in any way as a promoter of the 

 undertaking. I have not gone into its merits sufficiently 

 for that, though, as far as I have considered the matter, 

 I think favourably of it. — Believe me, yours very truly, 



G. G. Stokes. 



Sir John Lubbock, Bart. 



In the spring of this year he made an excursion 

 to Vienna with Lady Lubbock and Sir John Evans. 



