1852.] 



IRISH SUBMARINE TELEGRAPH. 



S3 



as art and care can make them ; the streets wide, the houses sub- 

 stantial, the pubHc buildings creditable, the shops and wholesale 

 warehouses showing every sign of a thriving and exuberant 

 ti'ade. Toronto, spreading over a wide and gently rising plateau 

 on the Lake shore, handsomely built, increasing naost rapidly, 

 possessing public buildings which in dimensions, in correctness of 

 taste, and in solidity of construction, are surpassed by few of a 

 similar kind in the second rate to-mis in England; its wealth 

 steadily accumulating, under perhaps the comparatively slow but 

 certain course of the strict business principles and mercantile 

 honor of the " old country" ; its numerous neat and well kept 

 villas, and houses of larger pretensions attached to considerable 

 farms at a further distance from the town, attesting the etfect of 

 the process. Kingston, also showing signs of prosperity and 

 progress; distinguished, even among the towns in Canada, for 

 tlie grandeur and correctness of design of its public buildings 

 (market houses, public offices, &c.) ; occupying an important posi- 

 tion at the head of the Rideau Canal ; guarded by its strong 

 fort, which combines in the landscape with the varied outline of 

 tlie town, the inlet forming the small dockyard, the woody islands 

 and the surrounding country. Montreal, alive with commerce, 

 pleasing the eye with the gracefid forms of the hills around; 

 some of its old narrow and somewhat picturesque streets remind- 

 ing one of Europe ; its public buildings erected and in progress, 

 equally substantial and creditable. Quebec, with its undying 

 interest, its beauty of position and outline, its crowd of masts 

 along its wharfs, its fleets at anchor below the citadel, or in 

 the "Timber coves" beneath overhanging cliffs and foliage, 

 its quaint old streets, its imposing fortifications, and its busy 

 population. 



Let all these chcumstauces be weighed; the gi'cat natural 

 resources of these provinces, the energy now at work in develop- 

 ing them, the inducements thereto held out by the home growth 

 of a consuming population and by the expanding facilities of 

 transport either to the home or to the foreign markets ; and it 



will be seen how extensive a field is there opening for the still 

 further employment of British Capital and labor. 



* * * * * * 



The respect and admiration I conceived for that splendid 

 colony on seeing it from, one end nearly to the other, were in no 

 wise diminished by what I witnessed or heard of the French 

 Canadian portion of it; nor were the anticipations of its future 

 progress in any degree lessened. And should any one in this 

 country be disposed to undervalue it, either in itself or as " part 

 and parcel" of the British dominions, I would beg him to go 

 and pass through the length and breadth of that favored and 

 magnificent land. Let him picture to himself its thirty millions 

 of acres of soil, than which finer and richer never came fi-om the 

 beneficent hand of nature ; let him survey that splendid river, 

 bearing to the ocean vessels that have navigated its parent water 

 for two thousand miles ; let him examine its Canals— those noble 

 works of skill and science that have as it were smoothed the 

 rapid and made a stepping stone of the rocky ridge that throws 

 Niagara over its brow ; let him walk through those towns on the 

 margin of those lakes and that river — ^towns which wealth has 

 already decorated, and which a sober and correct taste, and solid 

 comfort and convenience, have already stamped with a thoroughly 

 English character. Let him then look at the varied and in some 

 parts picturesque scenery, either glowing in the hot summer's 

 sun, or arrayed in the gorgeous tints of an American Autumn, 

 or reposing under the bright and silent winter's sky. Let him 

 see the many and vai'ious fruits of the earth pouring into those 

 towns daily, as from the very lap of plenty. Let him think of 

 the genuine English feeling, grounded on the participation of 

 British freedom with the pride of British origin, which pervades 

 the land ; and the no less deep and elevated sentiments of French 

 nationality, with which, in singular and beautiful union, a chival- 

 rous loyalty to our Queen is mingled as the colors in a prism, distinct 

 yet united. Let him see and consider these things, and then ask him- 

 self if that is a country of which to speak lightly, as one that may 

 possibly be torn, or may one day fall away from the British Crown ! 



The Irish Submarine Telegraph. 



The success of the Electric Telegraph would have been greatly 

 circumscribed, if means had not been found of passing the electro- 

 current under water. Intelligence would have been transmitted 

 swiftly over continents, and arrested by narrow channels. The 

 instraments of perfecting important discoveries sometimes appear 

 alonT with the invention. The electro cuiTent can be conveyed 

 beneath water by the aid of gutta pcrcha, and this singular 

 material came into the western markets at the precise time when 

 it was required to accomplish this work. The wires of the 

 Electric Telegraph, when stretched on poles by the side of 

 railways, according to the common piaetice mtluscountn, are 



wires, although that is entirely imaginative ; but, in the case of 

 the subterranean telegraph, information of an evil deed seems to 

 spring out of the earth. But the telegrapih has other, more 

 common, and more important purposes to serve, than that of a 

 police assistant. It is not always charged with messages of evil. 

 It carries all the more important missives of the age, and if it ever 

 brings a tale of danger of war, it will as often convey the glad 

 tidings of safety and of peace. Its operations and tendencies are 

 all on the side of inter-national friendships and amity, for it utterly 

 annihilates distance, in one respeotj and will maintain yet hourly 

 communications between the most dihtaut legions of the earth 



independent of gutta pereha; but when they aie cariied through 

 tunnels, its aid is necessar}'. The aerial telegraph, although 

 common in Britain, is not universally used. The subterranean 

 system is chiefly practised in Germany. We suspend the wires 

 on poles, and the Prussians cover them up in a trench. The 

 idea of messages ovei-taking railway trains, passing them with 

 inconceivable rapidity, and preparing for travelleis an unwelcome 

 reception at the end of their journey, has become a frequent 

 subject of sentimental writing. It is not quite so startling as 

 those underground messages transmitted with equal rapidity. 

 As the train hurries over the line, the traveller has leave to 

 imagine that his eye detects a shghttremulousness in neighbouring 



But deep, wide oceans intervene between them, and neither the 

 English nor the German systems of telegraphing are practicable 

 on them. Science had not material whereby to throw a bridge 

 with poles and wires over the Atlantic, while the subterranean 

 system seemed at least equally improbable. The latter, however, 

 affoi'ded suggestions for a subaqueous telegraph. The insulation 

 and protection of the telegraph wires were requisite in the 

 subterranean system, and were fully aftbrded by gutta pereha. 

 The wires had been covered by that strange gum, extracted from 

 an eastern tree, and while this covering did not interfere with 

 the transmission of messages, it efiectually shielded the swift 

 messenger on the journey, or perhaps we should describe it with 



