"SCIENTIFIC HUMBUG" HONOURED AT LAST. 183 



method turned out to be extremely necessary, for the 

 notoriously high temperature of the Red Sea softened 

 the gutta-percha and thereby produced numerous faults. 

 In spite of all the care that had been taken for their 

 removal, it appeared on arriving in Aden that a - 

 fortunately considerable, and therefore easily disco- 

 verable defect existed in the cable, which rendered 

 communication with the preceding station Suakim im- 

 possible. The determination of the fault from Aden 

 yielded the result that the defect was somewhere in 

 the vicinity, i. e. in the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb. 

 Although Mr. Newall and his engineers had not much 



o O 



confidence in my determination of the position of the 

 fault, yet the cable was fished up and cut close behind 

 the place I had indicated, whereupon to the general 

 surprise and joy it appeared that the part of the cable 

 connected with Suakim was sound. The fault was situ- 

 ated almost exactly at the calculated place, and was 

 removed after inserting a short piece of new cable. 



Through this successful incident the "scientific 

 humbug" had come all at once to honour. Success 

 was rendered possible by my having entirely substituted 

 resistance measurements for current measurements. A 

 fixed standard of the resistance to electrical conductions 

 did not then exist. Jacobi had tried indeed to introduce 

 a purely empirical standard as general measure of 

 resistance by sending to scientists and mechanicians 

 pieces of copper wire of equal resistance, recommending 

 them to take this resistance generally as unit. But it 

 soon appeared that the resistances varied, and repeated 



