]14 BEITISH ASSOCIATION FOE THE 



the proceedings, shews that a wire of six times the length of the Varna and Balak. 

 lava -wire, if of the same lateral dimensions, would give thirty-six times the retarda- 

 tion, and thirty-six times the slowness of action. If the distinctness o f utterance 

 and rapidity of action practicable with the Varna and Balaklava . - - re only such 

 as not to be inconvenient, it would be necessary to have a wire of six times the 

 diameter or better, thirty-six wires of the same dimensions, or a larger number o^ 

 small wires twisted together, under a gutta-percha covering, to give tolerably 

 convenient action by a submarine cable of six times the length." The author then 

 stated, that circumstances had enabled him to make very recently a long series of 

 experiments upon this point, the results of which he proposed to lay before the 

 Section ; adding, that an opportunity still existed for repeating these experiments 

 upon a portion of cable to which he could obtain access, and that he was ready to 

 show them before a committee of this Section in London, if the important nature 

 of the subject should seem to render such a course desirable. Although the subject 

 of submarine telegraphy had many points of the highest importance requiring 

 investigation, and to th consideration of which he had been devoting himself 

 recently, Mr. Whitehouse proposed to confine his remarks on this occasion to the 

 one point indicated in the title, inasmuch as the decision of that one, either 

 favourably or otherwise, would have, on the one hand, the effect of putting a very 

 narrow limit to our progress in telegraphy, or, on the other, of leaving it the most 

 ample scope He drew a distinction between the mere transmission of a current 

 across the Atlantic' (the possibility of which he supposed everybody must admit) 

 and the effectual working of a telegraph at a speed sufficient for " commercial 

 success ;" and we gathered from his remarks that there were those ready to 

 embark in the undertaking as soon as the possibility of "commercial success" was 

 demonstrated. The author then gave a description of the apparatus employed in 

 his researches, of the manner in which the experiments were conducted, and, lastly, 

 of the results obtained. The wires upon which the experiments were made were 

 copper, of No. 16 gauge, very perfectly insulated with gutta-percha — spun into two 

 cables, containing three wires of equal length (83 miles,) covered *ith iron wires 

 and coiled in a large tank in full contact with moist earth, but not submerged. The 

 two cables were subsequently jointed together, making a length of 166 miles of 

 cable, containing three wires. In addition to this, in some of the latest experi- 

 ments, he had also the advantage of another length of cable, giving, with the above, 

 an aggregate of 1,020 miles. The instruments, one of which was exhibited, 

 seemed to b3 of great delicacy, capable of the utmost nicety of adjustment, and 

 particularly free from sources of error. The records were all made automatically, 

 by electro-chemical decomposition, on chemically prepared paper. The observa- 

 tions of different distances recorded themselves upon the same slip of paper, — 

 thus, 0.83 and 249 miles were imprinted upon one paper, 0.83, 498 miles upon 

 another slip, and 0.249, 498 upon another, and 0.535, 1,020 upon another. Thus, by 

 the juxtaposition of the several simultaneous records on each slip, as well as by the 

 comparison of one slip with another, the author has been enabled to show most 

 convincingly that the law of the squares is not the law which governs the transmis- 

 sion of signals in submarine circuits. Mr. Whitehouse showed next, by reference 

 to published experiments of Faraday's and Wheatstone's (Philosophical Maga- 

 zine, July, 1855,) that the effect of the iron covering with which the cable was 

 surrounded was, electrically speaking, identical with that which would have 

 resulted from submerging the wire, and that the results of the experiments could 



