President's Address for the year 1887. xi 



a cable was laid across the bed of the Atlantic from Europe 

 to America. Like the little pioneer cable from Dover to 

 Calais, this at first proved short-lived, but as with advancing 

 years valuable experience was accumulating, and cables of 

 gradually increasing length being laid across minor seas, the 

 attempt was at last repeated with perfect success, and 

 the year 1866 saw Atlantic submarine telegraphy an 

 accomplished practical commercial fact. Since then the 

 work has been steadily advancing, until the familiar poles 

 and wires are now found in the wilds of Central Australia, 

 the deserts of Africa, the snowy wastes of Siberia, and the 

 prairies of America, and the cables extend across all the 

 seas from North America across the Atlantic, and through 

 the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, and Indian Ocean, down 

 to New Zealand, the world being bound in one vast net- 

 work of wires, from north to south, and from east to west ; 

 the only part as yet untraversed being the Pacific Ocean, across 

 which a cable is now being urgently demanded. Up to the 

 present time, 115,000 miles of submarine cable, costing 

 altogether, nearly c£1^0, 000,000, have been laid, while the 

 length of land line is beyond counting. And while the 

 telegraphic nerve system of the globe has been so rapidly 

 extending, its capabilities in the way of rapid transmission 

 have also advanced. In the pioneer experimental telegraph 

 of 1837, five wires were nsed to convey one message, and it 

 was considered good work to send five words per minute, 

 now six messages may be sent simultaneously along one 

 wire, and by the aid of the Wheatstone automatic instrument, 

 nearly five hundred words a minute can be sent. 



And to whom is this mighty development due ? Like 

 most great inventions, it is the aggregate result of the 

 labours of many. It was long expected and many years in 

 preparation. Men of theory and men of practice alike aided, 

 the former patiently investigating phenomena of apparently 

 no practical interest ; the latter appreciating and applying 

 principles, which in the absence of their more contemplative 

 brethren, they could never have discovered. Thales of 

 Miletus, and Gilbert of Colchester, laid the foundation ; 



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