COLOGNE -VERVIERS LINE. 99 



fixed railway bridge, it was taken up again, a number 

 of ships' anchors were found suspended to the pro- 

 tecting chain, which the sailors had had to cut in 

 order to free their ships. The chain had thus done 

 its duty. 



An extremely difficult and instructive piece of 

 work was the construction of the line from Cologne 



o 



via Aix-la-Chapelle to Venders in Belgium, where the 

 junction with the overhead line from Brussels to Venders, 

 which had meanwhile been taken in hand, was to be 

 made. Here were several tunnels to be passed through, 

 in which the conducting wires had to be protected by 

 iron tubes attached to the tunnel walls. In large por- 

 tions of the railway embankment the trench for bedding 

 the wire had to be made by blasting with powder. 



During the construction of the line I got to know 

 the entrepreneur of the pigeon post between Cologne 

 and Brussels, a Mr. Reuter, whose useful and profitable 

 business appeared to be hopelessly destroyed by the 

 laying of the electric telegraph. When Mrs. Reuter, 

 who accompanied her husband on his journeys, was 

 lamenting over this destruction of their business, I gave 

 the couple the advice to go to London, and there set up 

 a despatch-forwarding bureau, such as had just been 

 etablished in Berlin by a Mr. Wolff, with the co-ope- 

 ration of my cousin the before-mentioned law-counsellor 

 Siemens. The Reuters followed my advice with re- 

 markable success. Renter's telegraph agency in London 

 and its founder, the rich Baron Reuter, have to-day 

 a world- wide reputation. 



