274 ON THE TRACK OF THE MAIL-COACH 



I was then on a visit of inspection. Browhead was 

 utilized as a signal-station for noting and telegraph- 

 ing to Cork and Queenstown the passing of home- 

 ward-bound packets near the Fastnet Lighthouse 

 (nine or ten miles out in the Atlantic), that is, when 

 they could be seen from the mountain. 



The lighthouse has now been put into direct 

 telegraphic communication with the mainland at 

 Galley Cove, a mile or so from Browhead, by a 

 special electrical method. 



The rock on which the lighthouse stands is almost 

 vertical, and rises eighty-seven feet above low-water- 

 mark. If a submarine cable were carried along the 

 sea-floor and up the face of the rock, it would speedily 

 be broken by the force of the waters, or chafed 

 through on the sharp rocks hard by. Nevertheless, 

 telegraphic communication has been successfully es- 

 tablished and maintained, under the special method 

 of Messrs. Willoughby- Smith and Granville, by means 

 of a cable which is not continuous, but which stops 

 about one hundred and twenty feet short of the rock, 

 and bathes its open end twelve fathoms deep in the 

 Atlantic Ocean. It is kept in position by a weighty 

 * mushroom ' anchor of copper. 



In the ordinary way, the circuit which is essential 

 to all telegraphic operations would be formed by an 

 insulated metallic conductor (a cable, in short) from 

 the telegraphic instrument in the post-office at Crook- 

 haven, to an instrument in the lighthouse. The 

 current would go in one direction by wire, and to 



