LINE TO COLOGNE. 97 



standing the difficulties which we then encountered in 

 things now regarded as a matter of course. Concep- 

 tions and helps, which are to-day familiar to every 

 schoolboy, could at that time often only be obtained 

 by effort and hard work. 



I had the satisfaction of seeing this first long 

 telegraph line not merely of Germany but of 



Europe already at work in the winter of 1849, 



so that the election of an Emperor, which took place 

 in Frankfort, was by its help known the same hour 

 in Berlin. This favourable result led to the determina- 

 tion of the Prussian Government to construct at once 

 a line from Berlin to Cologne and the Prussian frontier 

 at Verviers. and after that others to Hamburg and 

 Breslau. All these lines were for safety's sake to be 

 underground, according to the system of the Berlin- 

 Eisenach line, although in this unmistakable defects 

 had already made themselves manifest. As these 

 defects were mainly owing to the facility with which 

 the wires w r ere injured by workmen, and here and 

 there also by rats mice and moles, through being- 

 deposited only one and a half to two feet below the 

 surface in the mostly loose sand of the railway 

 embankments, it was determined to bury the wires 

 2 1 J 2 to 3 feet deep; but even then there was to be 

 no external protection on account of the cost. 



I had declared myself ready to undertake also 

 the superintendence of the construction of the line to 

 Cologne and Verviers, provided I received further mili- 

 tary fourlough and provided my friend William Meyer. 







OF THE 



UNIVERSITY 



a* 



