784 EEPORT— 1888. 



inventive skill ourselves, and we have received our full meed of that reward which 

 is always freely bestowed on a British Government official, neglect and abuse. 



All parts of the civilised world are now united by submarine cables. The ' Times ' 

 every morning has despatches from every quarter of the globe, giving the news of 

 the previous day. 110,000 miles of cable have beeu laid by British ships, and nearly 

 40,000,000/. of British capital have been expended by private enterprise in completing 

 this grand undertaking. A fleet of 37 ships is maintained in various oceans to lay 

 new cables and to repair breaks and faults — faults that arise, among other causes, 

 from chafing on coral reefs, ships' anchors, the onslaught of insects, and earthquakes. 

 The two cables connecting Australia and Java were recently simultaneously broken 

 by an earthquake. 



The politician, unmindful of the works of the engineer, is apt to apply to the 

 credit of his own p.-oceedings the growing prosperity of the woild. The engineer, 

 however, feels thau steam and electricity in his hands have done move to economise 

 labour, to cheapen life, to increase wealth, to promote international friendship, to 

 alleviate suffering, to ward off war, to encourage peace, than all the legislation 

 and all the verbosity of the politician. 



The railways of this country are entirely dependent for the conduct of their 

 traffic on the telegraph, and the security of their passengers is mainly due to the 

 working of the block sj'stem. A railway, say between London and Bath, is 

 broken up into certain short sections, and only one train is allowed on one section 

 at one time. The presence, motion, and departure of trains are announced and 

 controlled by electric signals, and the outdoor signals are governed by these 

 electric signals. There are few more interesting places to visit than a well- 

 equipped signal-box on one of our main railways. The signalman is able to survey 

 the lines all around and about him by aid of his electric signals ; he can talk by 

 telegraph or by telephone to his neighbours and his station-master ; he learns of 

 the motion of the trains he is marshalling by the different sounds of electric bells ; 

 he controls his outdoor signals by the deflection of needles, or the movement of 

 miniature semaphores; he learns the true working of his distant signals by their 

 electrical repetition ; machinery governs and locks every motion he makes, so that 

 he cannot make a mistake. The safety of railway travelling is indicated by the 

 fact that while in the five years ending 1878 thirty-five people were killed annually 

 from causes beyond their own control, in the five years ending 1887 the average 

 has been reduced to sixteen. One person is killed in 35,000,000 journeys made by 

 train. Wherever we are dependent on human agency we are subject to human 

 error, and a serious accident very recently at Hampton Wick has shown how the 

 most perfect machinery may be rendered valueless to protect life when perversity, 

 thoughtlessness, or criminality enter as factors into the case. 



At the meeting of the Association in Plymouth in 1877, I was able for the first 

 time in this country to show the telephone at work. Since then its use has 

 advanced with giant strides. There are probably a million instruments at work 

 now throughout the civilised world. Its development has been regularly chronicled 

 at our meetings. As far as the receiving part of the apparatus is concerned, it 

 remains precisely the same as that whicli I brought over from America in 1877 } 

 but the transmitter, since the discovery of the microphone by Hughes in 1878, 

 has been entirely remodelled. Edison's carbon transmitter was a great step 

 in advance ; and the modern transmitters of Moseley, Berliner, D'Arsonval, 

 De Jongh, leave little to be desired. The disturbances due to induction have been 

 entirely eliminated, and the laws regulating the distance to which speech is 

 possible are so well known that the specification of the circuit required to connect 

 the Land's End with John o'Groat's by telephone is a simple question of calcula- 

 tion. A circuit has been erected between Paris and Marseilles, 600 miles apart, 

 with two copper wires of 6^ gauge, weighing 640 lbs. per mile, and conversation is 

 easily maintained between those important cities at the cost of three francs for 

 three minutes. One scarcely knows which fact is the more astounding — the 

 distance at which the human voice can be reproduced, or the ridiculously simple 

 apparatus that performs the reproduction. But more marvellous than either is the 

 extreme sensitiveness of the instrument itself, for the energy contained in one heat 



