150 LINE TO THE SEAT OF WAR. 



by the blockade of the latter. With great difficulty 

 two ships from Ltibeck , loaded with iron wire for 

 Russian ports, escaped capture through English cruisers, 

 by taking refuge in Memel, whence their cargo was 

 forwarded overland. 



The Berlin firm had enough to do with procuring 

 the materials, preparing the apparatus, and organising 

 the transports, and was therefore only in a slight 

 degree enabled directly to assist my brother Charles, 

 on whose shoulders the whole burden of the con- 

 struction of the line rested. Charles's chief assistants 

 in the execution of these works were my former 

 serving-man Hemp, who had rendered such effective 

 aid in Schleswig-Holstein, and the half- pay captain 

 Beelitz alluded to above. I myself was indespensable 

 in Berlin, where meanwhile the construction of rail- 

 way lines uninterruptedly continued, and was obliged 

 to content myself with repeatedly journeying to 

 St. Petersburg, to superintend organizing work and 

 maintain the connection between the centres of our 

 activity. 



In the spring of 1855 I repaired to St. Petersburg 

 for a somewhat longer stay in company with my friend 

 William Meyer -- who meanwhile had resigned his post 

 in the Prussian government telegraph department, and 

 had become chief engineer and confidential clerk of 

 the firm of Siemens & Halske - - in order to introduce 

 in our office there an organization answering the ra- 

 pidly growing requirements. We had already nearly 

 finished our work and were thinking seriously of our 



