An Empire : Ocean-wide 



their dreams to themselves. On land the electric 

 telegraph was getting into wider and wider use. 

 The bare idea, however, of so uniting lands 

 separated by the ocean had not been brought 

 forward. 



Between 1840 and 1850 the notion did come 

 up, and was discussed. A small attempt was 

 made in America, with what may be called a 

 baby-cable, across a slight extent of water, near 

 land. The Professor who made this experiment ^ 

 ventured on a prediction that, in days to come, 

 an electric cable might unite Great Britain and 

 America. His friends probably pitied him as 

 a visionary. 



Through that decade there was no further 

 advance. But in 1850 another step was taken. 

 The first " open-sea " submarine cable was laid 

 down between Dover and Calais ; one of copper 

 wire, covered with gutta-percha, outside which 

 was a thick leaden tube. 



For the moment a slender line joined England 

 to the Continent. 



Then an enterprising French fisherman, in 

 quest of conger-eels, caught the cable in his 

 powerful hook, and hauled it up. He took it for 

 a stout sea-weed stem, and tried the eftect of a 



* Professor S. F. B. MOKSE. 

 277 



