AMERICAN TELEGRAPHIC LINES. 



The following estimate of tlie capital absorbed by these enter- 

 prises is given in Mr. Shaffner's report : 



Dollars. 



Morse lines . . 5,545800 

 House .... 955000 

 Bain . . 171000 



6,671800 



Being equivalent to 1,4000007. 



Except in cases where a great commerce or intercourse prevails, 

 each company maintains only a single conducting wire between 

 station and station. As examples of the exceptions to this may 

 be mentioned, "Washington and Philadelphia, connected by seven. 

 Morse wires ; New York and Buffalo, and New York and Boston, 

 by three ; Cleveland and Cincinnati, and Boston and Portland,, 

 by two, 



In some cases, important terminal stations, such as New York 

 and Boston, are connected by the wires of several competing 

 companies, which follow, however, different routes, serving different 

 intermediate stations. 



The State of Ohio, a tract of country lying between the upper 

 part of the river of that name, and the southern shore of Lake 

 Erie, the chief part of which, within the lives of the present 

 generation, was an uncultivated and uninhabited waste, is now 

 overspread with between 3000 and 4000 miles of electric telegraph, 



286. Stupendous as have been the projects actually realised in 

 this application of science to the social uses of the United States,. 

 they sink into comparative insignificance when others, which are 

 contemplated, and likely to be executed, are stated. Thus we 

 find a report presented to Congress, in the session of 1851, by the 

 Post-office Committee, in which a project of a line of electric 

 telegraph to California is recommended for ultimate adoption. This, 

 report says that 



"The route selected by the committee is, according to the- 

 survey of Captain W. W. Chapman, U.S. Army, one of the best 

 that could be adopted, possessing as it does great local advantages. 

 It will commence at the city of Natchez, in the State of Mississippi, 

 running through a well settled portion of Northern Texas, to the 

 town of El Paso, on the Rio Grande, in latitude 32 ; thence tc- 

 the junction of the Gila and Colorado rivers, crossing at the head 

 of the Gulf of California to San Diego, on the Pacific ; thence 

 along the coast to Monterey and San Francisco. By this route, 

 the whole line between the Mississippi River and Pacific Ocean 

 will be south of latitude 33 ; consequently, almost entirely free 

 from the great difficulties to be encountered, owing to the snow 



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