INDO-EUROPEAN LINE. 259 



The construction of the line was assigned to our 

 firms in the following manner. The Berlin undertook 

 in conjunction with the St. Petersburg business the 

 management of the construction of the land lines, whilst 

 the London concern was entrusted with the laying of 

 the submarine line in the Black Sea and the delivery 

 of the materials for the construction of the lines. To 

 the Berlin firm moreover was left the design and 

 construction of the necessary telegraphic apparatus. 

 In spite of great and unexpected obstacles the line 

 was completed by the end of 1869, although un- 

 fortunately the already mentioned destruction of the 

 cable along the Caucasian coast resulting from an 



O o 



earthquake, and the inevitably slow replacement of 

 the same by a land line, rendered a regular telegraph 

 service impossible before the following year. 



According to the working programme drawn up 

 by us, the messages from London to Calcutta were 

 to be forwarded without any manipulation at the inter- 

 mediate stations, i. e. by purely mechanical means, in 

 order to preclude loss of time and mutilation by 

 telegraphists in forwarding. For this purpose I con- 

 structed for the Indo-European line a special system 

 of apparatus, which completely solved this problem. 

 It naturally excited great astonishment in England, 

 when at the first official experiments London and 

 Calcutta conversed with one another along a line of 

 nearly seven thousand miles as quickly and surely as 

 two neighbouring English telegraph stations. 



An unexpected difficulty was caused by the 



17* 



