170 KINGSBRIDGE 



prey. Montagu says it does occasionally become the habi- 

 tation of a small crab, which seems to live in harmony 

 with it, but that in not less than fifty of the Pinna ingens 

 which he opened, not a single crab was found; yet in 

 the only specimen of Mytilus modiolus, taken in the same 

 place, three crabs were found within the shell. The ancients 

 used to make costly vestments from the silky byssus of 

 this animal, and modern travellers assert that gloves and 

 stockings are still manufactured from it at Palermo, Naples, 

 and one or two other places. 



We have been furnished with a few particulars respecting 

 the laying of the telegraph cable at Salcombe : they are here 

 given. 



"In order to effect a direct communication between the 

 French- Atlantic telegraph cable and London, a sub-marine 

 cable between Salcombe and Brest has been laid. The 

 steamer William Cory, having the cable on board, under the 

 superintendence of Captain Mayne, R.N., C.B., arrived off 

 Salcombe on the 27th, and the shore end was landed on the 

 28th of May, 1870 — the point selected being a sandy beach 

 at Starehole Bottom, under the Bolt Head. It was then 

 conveyed about two hundred and fifty yards, to the top of 

 the adjacent cliff. The temporary testing house into which 

 the cable was carried was, in the course of a few months, 

 dismantled, and a more substantial erection of stone received 

 the instruments, so as to test at intervals the state of the 

 insulation and continuity of the submerged portions of the 

 cable. Subsequently, the Anglo-American Cable Steam-ship 

 Robert Lowe was engaged off the coast, raising the shore 

 end and making a fresh splice, so as to bring it into the 

 instrument house built for the purpose on the North Sands. 

 This was effected on the 15th of October, 1871; the wires 



