FIRST SUBMARINE WIRES. 161 



With the perseverance characteristic of the English 

 in prosecuting their undertakings, the laying of a large 

 number of other cables was, after this first success, at 

 once planned and attempted, before the problem was 

 ripe for a scientific and technical solution. Failures ac- 

 cordingly could not but occur. The laying itself present- 

 ed no difficulty in the shallow water of the North Sea. 

 The preparation of insulated conductors was undertaken 

 in England by a gutta-percha company, which could not 

 be prevented from employing my coating process, since 

 I had not protected my inventions by a patent. As this 

 company could always make use of the best quality of 

 gutta-percha, owing to its command of the English 

 market, it would have been in a position to turn out 

 remarkably well -insulated conductors, if the electrical 

 testing and control of the workmanship had been carried 

 out with as much care as we had taken. Scientific know- 

 ledge and methods were however at that time as little 

 appreciated in English industry as in our own. It was 

 thought enough to make sure that a current traversed 

 the wire, and that the instruments worked satisfactorily. 

 Even much later my methods for a systematic testing 

 of the conducting wires were characterizedby English 

 engineers as "scientific humbug!" Nevertheless the firm 

 of Newall & Co. succeeded in the year 1854 during 

 the Crimean war in laying an unarmed conducting 

 wire, insulated only by a coating of gutta-percha, from 

 Varna to Balaclava in the Crimea, and with the good 

 fortune that it remained serviceable till the capture of 



Sebastopol in September 1855, i. e. for about a year. 



11 



