The Express.
London, England, 1858-09-08 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, WEDNESDAY

of the stations, or a diminution in the conductibility
of the wire by its attenuation or some other canoe, a
signal might be received at that station, thisses it
could not be transmitted from it.
The intensity of a currant of electriofty •sent
through any length of Idecteic wire or cads is dimi-
nished in some ratio, depending upon the lfsagth of
the wire through which it pining. The current, which
may be of inlet intensity IS it leaves Newfoundland,
becomes much weaker as it reaches Ireland. As it
leaves Newfoandland it would perhaps paralyse

. . . .
you ; mit nears Ireland you might take it with im-
punity. Now, if there be an interruption or leakage,
not a total stoppage, of the electrical current sear
Ireland, the current sent from Newfoundland to
Ireland might suffer a great diminution of intensity
near its destination, and yet be strong enough to
make itself manifest to the recording instrument in
Ireland. On the other hand, the current sent from
Inland to Newfoundland, suffering a great lode of
intensity near its starting point, might not, after its
diminution of intensity, be able to record its presence
at Newfoundland.

The deep and intense interest which all mut feel
in the present interruption of communication

between the Old and New World must be our
apology for endeavouring to popularie. e an abstruse
point of science. The letter of Mr. Wurranoutut is
nog eatiatactory in on. reepoot—it makes se hope
that the cause of the interruption may be from some
injury to the shore end of the cable, either near Ire-
land or Newfotusdhind.

We cannot enter into the dissensions between Mr.
W1T171310134E and the Directors of the Atlantic
Telegraph Company, so long as only one side of the
question is presented to the public. All personal
discard and difference becomes insignificant when
compared with the great question now at stake.
There are numerous causes which may have pro-
duced the interruption of electrical communication.
A single hole through the gotta perchs or insulating
covering of the copper wire, no larger than suffi-
cient to allow a single hair of the head to pass any-
where between the wire and the outer easing of iron
or the water, occurring at any point of the whole
length of two thousand miles of cable, would pro-
, duce the fatal result.

It must also be borne in mind, that the mysterious
interruption for some minutes of communication

between the Agamemnon and the Nisgars, after the
fealty piece of rope had been repaired, which after-
wards as mysteriously disappeared, has never been
accounted for. The raising the temperature of any
portion of the gotta percha sheath from 42 deg. to
80 or 70 deg. might be productive of a serious inter-
ruption of the electric current. In addition to all
this, we have the extraordinary pranks of terrestrial
magnetism. The history of the preliminary pro-
ceedings of the Atlantic Telegraph, published last
year by the Directors of the company, sontains
the following instructive passage :—" It is within
" the hounds of possibility that the perturbing
" influenee of terrestrial magnetism, especially
" during the occurrence of magnetic storms, may
" prove to • certain extent troublesome. It is so,
" even on shorter circuits. The superintendent
"of the magnetic and meteorological department
"of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, Mr.
&Annum, sot infrequently finds indications of
" the coincidence of such magnetic disturbance with
" failure in the service of certain lines of electric
" telegraph. He tells of the editor of a provincial
" newspaper who suspected the officials of • tele-
" graph of being in league against him to withhold
" certain informatics which he required, when the
" Greenwich self-registering instruments were re-
" cording on their paper • perfect tornado of mug-
" netic oscillations, looking on their linear and tabu-
" fated sketch like some wondrous Alpine land of
" jagged peaks and abrupt valleys."
Whatever may be the nature of the present in-
terruption, whether temporary or permanent, we
must remember that the great problem—against the
possibility of which so many chances of failure
seemed arrayed—of the possibility of electrical sces-
munication between the Old World and the New has
been satisfactorily solved.