CHAP, v.] TELEGRAPHIC LINES. 631 



the submarine telegraphs are distributed among 231 cables of very 

 unequal lengths. 



In Europe the air lines measure nearly 200,000 miles, among 

 which Great Britain is represented by 58,000 miles, or one mile of 

 telegraph to each square mile of area, and France by 29,000 miles, 

 or one mile of telegraph to seven square miles. 



The number of messages sent has increased in an enormous 

 proportion. To give an idea of the greatness of the correspondence 

 in industrial countries, we may mention that in England, in the year 

 1870, shortly after the acquisition of the telegraphs by the State, 

 10,200,000 messages were sent, or 203,600 per week. M. W. Huber, 

 to whom we owe these statistical details, tells us that on the 18th 

 of July, 1870, the day on which the declaration of war between 

 France and Prussia was known in London, 20,592 messages passed 

 in the central station alone. The telegraph to India sent in 1871 

 33,000 messages ; and in spite of the high price of correspondence 

 by the transatlantic cables, 240,000 messages crossed the ocean in 

 a single year. These numbers fall far short of the total number of 

 messages sent in 1875, the annual increase being on an average about 

 20 per cent, on the preceding year's traffic. 



These statistics are sufficient to give us an idea of the impetus 

 given to rapid correspondence in various parts of the globe, but they 

 may be advantageously supplemented by a special reference to the 

 trans-oceanic lines. Europe is in direct communication with the 

 North American continent by seven cables, five of which start from 

 Valentia in Ireland, and the other from Brest, and end in Trinity 

 Bay in the Island of Newfoundland, or at St. Peter Miquelon, and go 

 on from thence to the territory of the United States. Two of these 

 cables, those laid in 1865 and 1866, are at this time (1876) inter- 

 rupted. South America is also connected with Europe by a submarine 

 line passing by Madeira and the Cape de Verde Isles, and ending at 

 Buenos Ayres, upon the east coast. From thence land wires extend 

 to Valparaiso 011 the west coast, and by submarine cable up to 

 Ecuador. 



At the present moment again, India is in telegraphic communica- 

 tion with Europe by three lines; one runs 'along the Ked Sea, and 

 then in the Mediterranean ramifies into several branches which go to 

 Sicily, Italy, France, and on to England, to the coast of Portugal 



