The Express.
London, England, 1866-07-26 00:00:00

TIIE EXPRESS,

The alternate sheets are separated from each other
by a distance of about 1-200th part of an inch.
Notwithstanding this proximity they are so well
insulated that when they are charged like a Ley-
den jar, many hours most elapse before the
charge shows any considerable diminution of force.
When the relative proportions of the apparatus
are adjusted so as to represent a cable 12,000
miles in length, with a conductor and core equal in
dimensions to the present Atlantic cable, viz.,
300 lb. of copper and 4001 b. of gutta-perdia to the
nautical mile, the rate of transmission is so slow
that nearly seven seconds elapse before the signal
begins to be visible at the distant end, and more
than a minute is required to make one complete
signal. Thanks to this comparatively slow rate of
signalling, it has been possible to study the trans-
mission of electric waves by actual experiment,
and the instrument known as the " curb key," the
joint invention of Mr. VARLET' and Professor
Twolasow, has been improved and perfected. It
should be said that electric signals are not trans-
mitted suddenly through long cables, but begin at
the distant end at first slowly, then gradually
rising, and, reaching a maximum, slowly subside
again. If several signals be made rapidly one
after the other they do not appear separately at
the distant end, but are jumbled together and
confused.
The duty of the curb key is to prevent this
indistinctness by cutting down the original electric
wave and leaving the line dear, and ready, after
each signal, for a second impulse. To effect this
five separate currents are used to produoe one wave
at the distant end. The first current is to pro-
duce the impulse, and the subsequent ones to curb
it rapidly, and to dear the line of its electric
charge, to as to be ready for the next impulse or
wave.
An artificial "line" has been constructed for each
terminus of the Atlantic cable, and Mr. VARLSY
suggesta that these artificial lines shall be so at-
tached that the telegraphist, in signalling through
from Valentia to America, or vice versa, may see
at any moment what effect his signals are produc-
ing at the distant end, and so know whether
his batteries are performing their duties properly.
The ease with which this can be done has been
put to a practical trial on the artificial line, and the
apparatus was also tested through the Atlantic
cable before the Great Eastern left Sheerness.
A piece of cable was connected up, in circuit
with the cable on board, and its insulating cover-
ing was removed. Even when the conductor was
exposed to the sea for eleven inches—representing
a fault of a magnitude that never occurs in prac-
tice—the signals through the cable were still per-
fectly clear and distinct. Thus, then, should a
fault of insulation unhappily develop itself in the
cable, it may be reasonably hoped that serious
mischief will be prevented by this and other ad-
vancements in telegraphic science.

itself se full a .erafessism et error that it would seem
almost ungenerous to keep up the recollection cd the ter-
rible and shameful mistake, to call it by the mildest name,
into which tory traditions so lately hurried the govern-
ment. Of course there are questions yet to be decided
which no eleventh hour complaisance and discretion on the
part of the Home Secretary can put aside. The legal and
constitutional question as to the right of the people to
meet in the parks must be settled soon in a formal
manner.

THI PLACIL
The armistice of last Sunday, observes the Times, did
not oonm one day too soon to save Austria from a final
catastrophe. Freeburg could hardly have failed to fall
into the hands of Pram* and one day more and the
Italians would have found themselves in full possession of
the southern Tyrol, while the Pruseians, masters
of the passes of the Danube at Freeburg and
Krems, would have threatened Vienna on the
east and west, and on both sides of the great river.
The suspension of hostilities, however, with their main
Austrian foe, will not prevent the Prussians from sweeping
forward to the south till the Bavarian cities of Bamburg
and Wurtzburg, Nuremberg and Augsburg, and even the
capitals of Stuttgart and Munich open their gates to them.
For their own sake and for the sake of modern civilisation
it is to be desired that the magnanimity of the Fruition'
should be on a par with their astounding good fortune.
Why the treatment which Sclavonian Brann and Czechien
Prague met at the Prussians' hands should notbe extended
to German Frankfort is matter for surprise and indignation.
The Times does not know to what extent the Emperor
Napoleon may be induced to meddle in this matter, and it
believes the government of this country, which was also
applied to far its intercession, has answered that, where
no interests of British subjects are concerned, it does not
feel called upon to interfere. In the present mood of
Prussia the remonstrances of any foreign power would be
likely to do the Frankforters more harm than good. But
to such assistance as the voice of public opinion may yield
they are clearly entitled.
While expressing the hope that the Prussian govern-
ment will mitigate the heavy penalty it has imposed on
Frankfort, the Daily News comments on the rashness of
the authorities there, who at the very moment when
Austria was reeling under the blows of her great rival,
when the Germanic Diet was fleeing from its seat, when
every European government was acknowledging that a
revolution in the affairs of Germany had taken place,
were so inommiderate and rash as ostentatiously to pro-
mulgats an uncalled for act of adhesion to the cause of the
enemies of Prumia. South of the Maine a great reaction
in public opinion is observable, and in Bavaria and Wur-
tomburg they are saying that the German government
which is the most willing and the most able to
cope with the French has a legitimate claim to
the support of the entire nation. Most of this
feeling on the part of the southerners in favour of sub-
mitting to Prussia is due to the Emperor's error in ceding
Venetia to France. The measure by which the Emperor
Francis Joseph hoped to secure his power in Germany is
tending to unite the states of the south with those of the
north under his great rival

The Herald devotes an article to • defence of Bavaria,
which, it argues, is at once too French and too indepen-
dently German, and counts for too much in the Boman
catholic world, to be absorbed by Prussia. The ally of that
power she may be, but not ita slave. The fate of the
I minor potentates of North Germany is different ; should
Prussia, as indeed Is her sagest coarse, restore them to
their thrones under strict conditions, they can only be con-
sidered to govern so many satrapies in dependence upon
the central dynasty of Berlin.
Should the negotiations end aa the Star anticipates,
the Emperors and Kings who have hitherto been giving
their whole attention to war, and spending the money of
the people upon projects of destruction, will have an op-
portunity of showing what they can do in the direction of
peaceful progress. Prussia, having reached the German
Ocean, will speedily transform thane petty ports of her
new possessions into great emporiums of trade. Austria
will become devoted to commerce. Trieste will vie with
Venice in obliterating the memory of the struggle by con-
ferraig upon each other lasting benefita. Venice m►y
again become as she was in days of yore, a gnat emporium
of Eastern traffic, and • route to India may be opened up
which will bring back the course of travel to what it was
when the Queen of the Adriatic was in her prime.