The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 29, March, 1860

But know ye where she hides her nest,
Beneath what balmy dropping eaves,
The Dove that bears on her white breast
The sacred green of olive-leaves?

Not when the Spring doth rosy rise
From white foam of the Northern snows;
Not when 'neath passion-throbbing skies
The fire-pulsed June in beauty glows:

But when amid the templed hills,
Deep drained from every purple vine,
Soft for her dying lips distils
The Summer's sacramental wine;

While all her woodland priests put on
Their vestures dipped in sacrifice,
And, as 'twere golden bells far swung,
A rhythmic silence holds the skies;

What time the Day-spring softly wells
From Night's dark caverns, till it sets
In long, melodious, tidal swells,
Toward the wide flood-gates of the West;—

Oh, open then my dungeon door!
Let Nature lead me, blind of eyes,
If haply I may feel once more
The pillars of the steadfast skies;

If haply there may fall for me
Some strange assurance in my fears,—
As he who heard on Galilee,
That stormy night in wondrous years,

The "It is I," and o'er the foam
Of what seemed phantom-haunted seas,
Saw glory of the kingdom come,
The footsteps of the Prince of Peace!

THE PROGRESS OF THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH

"Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world."

    PSALMS, xix. 4.

Among the impossibilities enumerated to convince Job of his ignorance and weakness, the Almighty asks,—

"Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we are?"

At the present day, every people in Christendom can respond in the affirmative.

The lines of electric telegraph are increasing so rapidly, that the length in actual use cannot be estimated at any moment with accuracy. At the commencement of 1848, it was stated that the length in operation in this country was about 3000 miles. At the end of 1850, the lines in operation, or in progress, in the United States, amounted to 22,000. In 1853, the total number of miles of wire in America amounted to 26,375.

It is but fifteen years since the first line of electric telegraph was constructed in this country; and at the present time there are not less than 50,000 miles in successful operation on this continent, having over 1400 stations, and employing upwards of 10,000 operators and clerks.

The number of messages passing over all the lines in this country annually is estimated at upwards of 5,000,000, producing a revenue of $2,000,000; in addition to which, the press pays $200,000 for public despatches.

In Europe there are lines rivalling those in America. The electric wire extends under the English Channel, the German Ocean, the Black and Red Seas, and the Mediterranean; it passes from crag to crag on the Alps, and runs through Italy, Switzerland, France, Germany, and Russia.

India, Australia, Cuba, Mexico, and several of the South American States have also their lines; and the wires uniting the Pacific and Atlantic States will shortly meet at the passes of the Rocky Mountains.

The electric telegraph, which has made such rapid strides, is yet in its infancy. The effect of its future extension, and of new applications, cannot be estimated, when, as a means of intercourse at least, its network shall spread through every village, bringing all parts of our republic into the closest and most intimate relations of friendship and interest. In connection with the railroad and steamboat, it has already achieved one important national result. It has made possible, on this continent, a wide-spread, yet closely linked, empire of States, such as our fathers never imagined. The highest office of the electric telegraph, in the future, is thus to be the promotion of unity, peace, and good-will among men.

In Europe, Great Britain and Ireland have the greatest number of miles of electric telegraph,—namely, 40,000. France has 26,000; Belgium, 1600; Germany, 35,000; Switzerland, 2000; Spain and Portugal, 1200; Italy, 6600; Turkey and Greece, 500; Russia, 12,000; Denmark and Sweden, 2000.

In Italy, Sardinia has the largest share of lines, having about 1200 miles; and in Germany, after Austria and Prussia, the largest share belongs to Bavaria, which has 1050. Saxony has 400 miles; Würtemberg, 195.

The distance between stations on lines of Continental telegraph is from ten to twelve miles on the average, and the number of them is about 3800.

In France the use of the electric telegraph has rapidly increased within the last few years. In 1851, the number of despatches transmitted was 9014, which produced 76,723 francs. In 1858, there were 463,973 despatches transmitted, producing 3,516,634 francs. During the last four years, that is to say, since all the chief towns in France have been in electric communication with Paris, and consequently with each other, there have been sent by private individuals 1,492,420 despatches, which have produced 12,528,591 francs. Out of the 97,728 despatches exchanged during the last three months of 1858, 23,728 were with Paris, and 15,409 with the thirty most important towns of France. These 15,409 despatches are divided, as to their object or nature, as follows:—Private and family affairs, 3102; journals, 523; commerce and manufactures, 6132; Bourse affairs, 5253; sundry affairs, 399.

In Australia, the electric telegraph is in constant use, affording a remunerating revenue, and the amount of business has forced on the government the necessity of additional wires.

Cuba has six hundred miles of wire in operation. Messages can be transmitted only in Spanish, and the closest surveillance is maintained by the government officials over all despatches offered for transmission. From the fact that no less than a dozen errors occurred in a dispatch transmitted by a Boston gentleman from Cardenas to Havana, we judge that the telegraphic apparatus, invented by our liberty-loving American, Professor House, rebels at such petty tyranny.

Several hundred miles of electric telegraph have been constructed in Mexico; but the unfortunate condition of the country for the last few years has precluded the possibility of maintaining it in working order, and it has, like everything else in the land of Monteznma, gone to decay.

The English and Dutch governments have come to an understanding upon a system of cables which will unite India and Australia, and eventually be extended to China. The arrangements between the governments are:—That the Indian and Imperial governments shall connect India with Singapore; that the Dutch government shall connect Singapore with the southeast point of Java; that the Australian governments shall connect their continent with Java. The cable for the Singapore-Java section was to have been laid during the last month; the Indian-Singapore section is to be laid this spring; and the connection with Australia will, it is believed, be completed in the course of next year.

The Red Sea and India Telegraph Company have announced the arrangements under which they are prepared to transmit messages for the public between Alexandria and Aden. Messages for Australia and China will be forwarded by post from Aden. It is considered probable that a direct communication with Alexandria will be established through Constantinople in the course of a few weeks, and then the news from India will reach London in ten or eleven days.

A late European steamer brings a report that two Russian engineers have proceeded to Pekin, China, to make preparations for a telegraphic connection between that place and the Russian territory.

There is reason to believe that arrangements will soon be made at St. Petersburg, through private companies and government subsidies, for completing the line of telegraph from Novgorod to the mouth of the Amoor, and thence across the straits to Russian America. In the mean time, a company has already been formed and incorporated in Canada, under the name of the Transmundane Telegraphic Company, which will afford important aid in continuing the proposed line through British America. The plan is, to carry the wires from the mouth of the Amoor across Behring's Strait, to and through Russian and British America. From Victoria a branch will be extended to San Francisco, and another to Canada. The line from San Francisco to Missouri is under way, and Mr. Collins, who is engaged in the Russian and Canadian enterprise, thinks that by the time it is in operation he shall have extended his line to San Francisco.

This is unquestionably the most feasible route for telegraphic communication between America and Europe; and, though the longest by several thousand miles, it would afford the most rapid means of communication, owing to the great superiority of aërial over subaqueous lines.

No limit has yet been found to aërial telegraphing; for, by inserting transferrers into the more extended circuits, renewed energy can be attained, and lines of several thousands of miles in length can be worked, if properly insulated, as surely as those of a hundred. The lines between New York and New Orleans are frequently connected together by means of transferrers, and direct communication is had over a distance of more than, two thousand miles. No perceptible retardation of the current takes place; on the contrary, the lines so connected work as successfully as when divided into shorter circuits.

This is not the case with subaqueous lines. The employment of submarine, as well as of subterranean conductors, occasions a small retardation in the velocity of the transmitted electricity. This retardation is not due to the length of the path which the electric current has to traverse, since it does not take place with a conductor equally long, insulated in the air. It arises, as Faraday has demonstrated, from a static reaction, which is determined by the introduction of a current into a conductor well insulated, but surrounded outside its insulating coating by a conducting body, such as sea-water or moist ground, or even simply by the metallic envelope of iron wires placed in communication with the ground. When this conductor is presented to one of the poles of a battery, the other pole of which communicates with the ground, it becomes charged with static electricity, like the coating of a Leyden jar,—electricity which is capable of giving rise to a discharge current, even after the voltaic current has ceased to be transmitted.

Professor Wheatstone experimented upon the cable intended to unite La Spezia, upon the coast of Piedmont, with the Island of Corsica. It was one hundred and ten miles in length, and contained six copper wires one-sixteenth of an inch in diameter, individually insulated, and each covered with a coating of gutta-percha one-twelfth of an inch in thickness. The cable was coiled in a dry pit in the yard, with its two ends accessible. The ends of the different wires could be united, so as to make of all these wires merely one wire six hundred and sixty miles in length, through which the electric current could circulate in the same direction. This current was itself furnished by an insulated battery formed of one hundred and forty-four Wheatstone's pairs, equal to fifty of Grove's. In the first series of experiments, it was proved, that, if one of the ends of the long wire, whose other end remained insulated, were made to communicate with one of the poles of the battery, the wire became charged with the electricity of that pole, which, so long as it existed, gave rise to a current which was made evident by a galvanometer: but, in order to obtain this result, the second pole of the battery must communicate with the ground, or with another long wire similar to the first.

In a second series of experiments, Professor Wheatstone interposed three galvanometers in the middle and at the ends of the circuit, determining in this manner the progress of the current by the order which they followed in their deviation. If the two poles of the battery were connected by the long conductor of six hundred and sixty miles, the precaution having been taken to divide it into two portions of equal length, it was observed, on connecting the two free extremities of these two portions in order to close the circuit, that the galvanometer placed in the middle was the first to be deflected, whilst the galvanometers placed in the vicinity of the poles were not deflected until later.

By a third series of experiments, Wheatstone, with the galvanometer, has shown that a continuous current may be maintained in the circuit of the long wire of an electric cable, of which one of the ends is insulated, whilst the other communicates with one of the poles of a battery whose other pole is connected with the ground. This current is due to the uniform and continual dispersion of the statical electricity with which the wire is charged along its whole length, as would happen to any other conducting body placed in an insulating medium.

It was owing to the retardation from this cause that communication through the Atlantic Cable was so exceedingly slow and difficult, and not, as many suppose, because the cable was defective. It is true that there was a fault in the cable, discovered by Varley, before it left Queenstown; but it was not of so serious a character as to offer any substantial obstacle to the passage of the electric current.