Figure 42. — American telegraph office {top) and operating 

 room of the mid- 19th century. From T. Shaffner, The Tele- 

 graph Manual, New York. 1859, pp. 459, 461. 



decade before they went out of service, and by then 

 others had been laid. 



In addition to the submarine cable system, the land 

 telegraphic system was also growing. By 1865 there 

 were 16,000 miles of telegraph lines in Great Britain, 

 64,000 miles in France, and 28,000 miles in Prussia. 

 In the United States the Civil War had interfered 

 with the normal economic growth of business, but by 

 the end of the war the three largest telegraph com- 



panies in the country had 83,000 miles of telegraph 

 lines. (See figs. 42-45.) 



In spite of the tens of thousands of miles of telegraph 

 lines in the world, there never were enough to satisfy 

 the ever-growing need for improved communications. 

 Inventors sought to devise various multiple telegraph 

 systems ''' by which a number of messages could be 



3' George B. Prescott, Electricity and the Electric Telegraph, 

 New York, 1888, 2 vols. pp. 769-918. 



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