'Hi 6 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



found in Australia to-day. Australia, being at the antipodes of England, a line to 

 connect the two must necessarily be long and costly. The shortest and easiest connection 

 was from Port Darwin to Batavia, and for making that, the colonies were indebted to 

 an English company. Neither singly nor jointly have' any of the Colonial Governments 

 ventured on the ownership of cables. They prefer to grant a subsidy, without which 

 the enterprise could not prove remunerative. The first step towards the connection was 

 taken in 1870, when the Overland Telegraph to the Northern Territory of South Australia 

 was commenced, mainly at the instance of Mr. Charles Todd, the energetic Superintendent 

 of Telegraphs in that colony. In the next year, the shore end of the cable between Ban- 

 jtK-wangie and Port Darwin was laid at the latter place, and, on the 2oth of the same 

 month, a cable message came through from Java reporting that communication was 

 complete. On the 2nd of July, 1872, the first cablegram from England was received 

 in Melbourne, and in October of the same year the Overland Telegraph across South Aus- 

 tralia was completed at a cost of ,370,000. A submarine cable connecting New Zealand 

 with New South Wales was laid from La Perouse, Botany, near Sydney, in 1876. A 

 second cable from Rangoon and Singapore, direct to Banjoewangie, by Port Darwin, 

 avoiding the Java land-line, was laid by the Company in consideration of an ad- 

 ditional subsidy ; and a third from Java to Roebuck's Bay, so as to give an alter- 

 native route. Surveys are also being made across the Pacific, with a view to con- 

 necting, with the west coast of America. A cable message between Melbourne and 

 London travels over 13,685 miles of wire, the course taken, after leaving Port Darwin, 

 being via Banjoewangie, Batavia, Singapore, Penang, Madras, Bombay, Aden, Suez, 







Alexandria, Malta, Gibraltar, Falmouth and London. The total cost of the whole extent 

 of telegraphic communication in the mother-colony of New South Wales on the 3ist 

 of December, 1889; v ' z : 22,606 miles 41 chains was ,713,663 is. 3d. 





