The Express.
London, England, 1858-08-06 00:00:00

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.

A SPECIAL EDITION of the "EXPRESS;'
containing the results of the day's Rams, is pub-
lished every evening daring the Sporting Season, at
siz o'clock.

TTI E 3th of August will henceforth be celebrated
IPA the day on which the Old and New World were
brought into instantaneous communication, by the
triumph of mind over matter. In an age of marvels
the most marvellous work of all has been effected. The
wildest imagination of the wildest post never ventured

to play with such a wonder u this. The despised
men of science, the patient questioners of nature,
have found the means of freeing the subtle lightning
confined in a few drops of water or a few grains of
metaL They have laid a pathway for it to travel
through the lowest stillest depths of the Atlantic,
far below the influence of wave and storm. The im-
prisoned spirit, freed from matter by thought, con-
veys its commands with the rapidity of its liberator.
The same subtle 'plait which directed CoLutteus
to the shores of the New World now becomes man's
messenger to carry his thoughts from one world to
the other. The same power which made the needle
point to the pole to lead the mariner over the path-
less ocean, now conveys man's messages below its
abyss with a rapidity that mocks even the flight of
time.

It was nearly two centuries after Marco POLO
brought the pole of the magnetic needle for naviga-
tion from China, before the adventurous Counters,
trusting to its guidance, discovered the Indies of the
West. Science now marches with more rapid
strides. The same generation which witnessed the
first steamboat tempt the waters in defiance of wind
and tide, saw steam mite the Old and New World
in hebdomadal communication.
It is hardly 70 years sines Madame GALVANI ob-
served the convalaione of the frogs she was prepar-
ing for her husband's soup, when touched by an
electrical conductor. Her accidental observations
gave birth to thole splendid aeries of dircoveriee
which, in leas than a century, have unfolded such
strange pre in the Book of Nature, and which the
utilising spirit of the age has already so successfully
appropriated to the exigencies of the highest degree
of civilisation.

Lord fi ICON taught as that the best mode of as
a knowledge of the seents of Nature was to
ask her questions, with a humble, diligent, teachable
spirit. Threescore years and ten have been devoted
to the inquirise—Why does amber when rubbed draw
light feathers to itself? Why does the magnet at-
tract iron sod point to the poles? Why should a
dead frog be apparently brought again to life foe
an ;natant, if when one metal touches a nerve and an-
other a muscle these two metals be united to a third?
The answers to these three questions have reduced all
three phenomena to the action of one single cause. All
lead to the subtle spirit or power we call Electricity.
Though es yet we know not what this electricity la
we have learnt to tame it. It is the spirit of the
storm. We see it in the lightning ; we hear it is
the thunder. We make it our VULCAN, to eliminate
metals from the earth which swim on water. We
cause it to rend rocks asunder. It is the slave of
the metallurgist. We make it reduce the works of
an age into instantaneous ruin. It has crumbled
Russia's proudest engineering triumph into dust,
with the resistless power of the thunderbolt; and
Dow it is oar MIZCORT, to carry winged messages
from the Old World to the New with lightningspeed.
The triumph of the Atlantic Cable is all the,
greater as previous failures have shown that the
work was one of no slight difficulty. When we
announced the last failure we did so still sanguine
of the ultimate success of the great undertaking.
Three hundred and thirty miles of cable had been
laid in the lowest depths of the Atlantic. Failure,
therefore, presaged success. If three hundred miles
mould be laid, why should not three thousand, if
necessary ? Perseverance has been rewarded with
its natural results.

The rendezvous was reached by the two vessels
on Wednesday, the 213th of July. The.next morn-
ing the Niagara's portion of the cable was spliced
to the Agamemnon's, on board the latter. By noon
the next day, Friday, 265 nautical miles were laid
between the two ship.. On Saturday the distance
between the Agamemnon and Niagara was increased
to 840 miles. On Sunday it was 884, on Tuesday
1,268, and on Wednesday 1,864 miles. At 6 o'clock
in the morning of Thursday, the Bth of Anne,
the Agiunemnon waa anchored in Valentia Harbour.
The Niagara had safely reached Trinity Bay,
Newfoundland. The two ships were united by
2,02'2 miles of cable, and the Atlantic Telegraph
was conveying to both crews the gratifying intelli-
gence that their anxieties were over, and the work
done well, withoat an accident to mar it.

As if to increase the triumph of success, the brief
Telegram from Valenti& notes that, with the ex-
emption of the last day of the operations, the
weather has been unfavourable. Thus in one week
steam power, guided by human skill, has united
Great Britain and America in the electrical commu-
nication of ono second. The extremely ingenious
Telegraph of Professor HVGHIIII, which we have
lately described in our columns, will now enable the
Telegraph Clerk in London to print a letter of the
alphabet in London, and the some letter, at an in-
terval of one second, on a strip of paper, in good
Homan type and good printer's ink, at New York.
He may then print letter after letter at intervals of
half a second. This is now the possible speed of

The laying down the cable is not the only triumph.
The question is Dow settled that electrical waves
can bo sent and made intelligible through more than
2, )00 miles of wire submerged in the lowest depths
of the ocean. Wiseacres shook their heads, asd
owlish foreboders of failure calculated the pressure
of the ocean on a cable two milts under water.