ADDRESS. XGl 



havo been will appear from the fact that, though wo have now 50,000 milca 

 of cable in use, to got at this result nearly 70,000 miles were constructed 

 and laid. This large percentage of failure, in the opinion of Dr. C. W. 

 Siemens (to whom I am much indebted for information on this subject), was 

 partly duo to the late introduction of testing a cable under water before it is 

 laid, and to the use of too light iron sheathing. 



Of immense importance in connexion with the subsequent extension of 

 submarine cables have been the discoveries of Ohm and Sir William Thom- 

 son, and the knowledge obtained that the resistance of wire in homogeneous 

 metal is directly proportional to the length, so that the place of a fault in a 

 cable of many thousand miles in length can be ascertained with so much pre- 

 cision as to enable you to go at once to repair it, although the damaged cable 

 may lie in some thousands of fathoms of water. 



Of railways the progress has been enormous ; but I do not know that in 

 a scientific point of view a railway is so marvellous in its character as the 

 electric telegraph. The results, however, of the construction and use of rail- 

 ways are more extensive and widespread, and their utility and convenience 

 brought home to a larger portion of mankind. It has come to pass, there- 

 fore, that the name of George Stephenson has been placed second only to that 

 of James Watt ; and as men are and will be estimated by the advantages 

 which their labours confer on mankind, he will remain in that niche, unless 

 indeed some greater luminary should arise to outshine him. The merit of 

 George Stephenson consisted, among other things, in this, that he saw more 

 clearly than any other engineer of his time the sort of thing that the world 

 wanted ; and that he persevered, in despite of learned objectors, with the 

 firm conviction that he was right and they were wrong, and that there was 

 within himself the power to demonstrate the accuracy of his convictions. 



Railways are a subject on which I may (I hope without tiring you) speak 

 somewhat more at length. The British Association is peripatetic, and with- 

 out railways its meetings, if held at all, would, I fear, be greatly reduced in 

 numbers. Moreover, you have all an interest in them : you all demand to be 

 carried safely, and you insist on being carried fast. Besides, everybody 

 understands, or thinks he understands, a railway ; and therefore I shall be 

 speaking on a subject common to all of us, and shall possibly only put before 

 you ideas which others as weU. as myself have already entertained. 



We who live in these days of roads and railways, and can move with a 

 fair degree of comfort, speed, and safety, almost where we will, can scarcely 

 realize the state of England two centuries ago, when the years of opposition 

 which preceded the era of coaches began ; when, as in 1662, there were but 

 six stages in all England, and John Crossdell, of the Charterhouse, thought 

 there were six too many ; when Sir Henry Herbcrti, a member of the House 

 of Commons, could say, " If a man were to propose to carry us regularly to 



