PURCHASE OP THE COPPER MINE OP KEDABEG. 261 



stadt to Strassburg, insulated by gutta-percha, was 

 coated with tin-foil, whilst the other six conductors 

 were uncoated. It appeared from the experiments 

 carried out after the laying, that the tin-foil entirely 

 obviated the electrostatic charge between the coated and 

 the other wires, whilst the electro-dynamic induction 

 between them remained quite unchanged. Unfortunately 

 the experiment could not be made with perfectly 

 insulated tin-foil, as such an insulation was not to be 

 attained. 



Even before the completion of the Indo-European 

 line our St. Petersburg firm had been entrusted by 

 the Russian government with the construction and the 

 remount of several telegraph lines in the Russian 

 Caucasus, and had for this purpose established a branch 

 in Tiflis. the management of which was committed to 

 my brother Walter. When after the completion of 

 the government works no sufficient occupation could 

 be found for the latter, he proposed to us the pur- 

 chase of a rich copper mine in the Caucasus at Kedabeg 

 near Elisabethpol. As mining did not fit into the 

 frame of the business activity of our firms , brother 

 Charles and I gave him privately the not very con- 

 siderable capital required for the purchase and the 

 working of the mine. 



The copper mine of Kedabeg is very old: it is 

 even asserted that it is one of the oldest mines, from 

 which copper was actually extracted in pre- historic 



