The Sun.
London, England, 1862-02-11 00:00:00

- A EWSPAPER
• =,C*-11, o\ZA
, • -• r • - ; 442/Asto&
tt
pirc 3 e-.
•-. .....,;;;••• '4l
SAira
AV:
• ett • At._ PRA
,0,•„, `‘c
_ ) 11101 -
%V
o .sAkiltill‘ .441
- 6r ^=l. ,n •
ce, - ' erhyt.,
•
Vt./
ROIL , 4 41'
....

, dell on the 7th of December instead of on the 10
of January ; and what fears and anxieties—what
stagnation of trade and depreciation of public
securities—and what national animosities arising
from the intemperance of English and
American writers, would then have been
prevented ! Much of the recent difficulty in
getting more cotton from India has arisen from the
time occupied in communicating with Calcutta from
England. Before mercantile transactions in cotton
could be effected at Calcutta, fears were entertained
that American news might render such transactions
unprofitable. It is a maxim that the quicker the
communication between the different marts of com-
merce throughout the world the safer can all kinds
of business be carried on. This is proved by the
large and continually increasing revenues derived
by telegraph companies even when they only par-
tially connect distant markets. A merchant living
ten or twelve thousand miles distant may give an
order for thousands of pounds' worth of goods, and
before the order arrives the markets may have
communication
r fe order.ua pit slaidcaptain
up passage, And
in
a in
The
withh n the changed, and a serious loss ensue, but no merchant
would ever complain of being enabled to delay giv-
ing an order for goods until within a few hours
when it would be necessary for the seller to execute
the
twelve-
month ago an Indian liner left London. After a
f
whichalmostnewCalcuttas
hospital
pt hwiteaa
reachedls
ow
tffihinearlyteehei
England. But letters announcing their recovery
and departure were given to some one to post, who
.5r d
c s hf wrecked,friends
andlee
nr a
sra crew
were
d
oet
sr a
the w
in
it is believed destroyed the letters for the sake of
keeping the postage money. For three months the
nateab s
e luxuryn t
friends in England of those poor fellows were kept
in an agony of suspense until their arrival
home a few weeks since. A telegram from
England, and one from Calcutta, would have
prevented this suspense. No one has failed to
notice the tone of anxiety of foreign correspon-
dence between friends and relatives, so unlike the
confidence of personal intercourse. The children
whom you inquire playfully after may be dead and
buried, and their parents may be mourning the loss
when they receive your letter three weeks or two
months after it has been written. The dominion
which was given us over the inferior animals has
been surpassed by our power over the secret forces
of nature. We have tamed steam and trained light
for the purpose of rapid locomotion and obtaining
transcripts of all material forms, but the adaptation
of electricity to the concentration of instantaneous
intelligence of what is going on in different parts
of the globe is, perhaps, the most marvellous in-
stance of human power, and a comparatively cheap
telegraphic communication to the most distant
places will be one of the completest blessings which
Science ever conferred upon mankind.—Daily
News,

PRICE. .... ..4d.
STAMPED ....sd.

OCEAN TELEGRAPHY.

The failure of the Atlantic telegraph was dis-
heartening. A feeling then prevailed that to con-
nect Europe and America telegraphically
,was an
object which science and wealth, skill and enter-
prise, must fail to accomplish. The successful lay-
ing down of ocean telegraph cables is a result of
immense importance to the whole civilised world;
but to the greatest of all commercial and colonial
Powers such a conquest of time and space is a vital
question. How often are vast interests alarmed and
imperilled for want of the means of instant and
secret communication ? This is an experience
which events repeatedly confirm. In a short time
there will be about 200,000 miles of electric tele-
graph wire in all parts of the world, estimated to
yield an income of about five millions sterling annu-
ally. The United Kingdom, Europe, and North-
eastern America are at present covered with a net-
work of telegraphic wires. In other parts of the
world also vastly extended lines of telegraphic wires
exist, such as thoSe between San Francisco Ift/TeNLG:
York, Kurrachee and Rangooein India,-and l~
bane and Adelaide in Australia. The electric tele-
graph in the United Kingdom alone yields an annual
revenue of about £lO for every mile of wire. The
Malta and Egypt submarine cable, about 1,000
miles in iength,isyielding nearly £l,OOO per week.
As this cable has been successfully laid, the project
of connecting telegraphically the west coast of Ire-
land and Newfoundland, a distance of 1,700 miles,
is now revived: If this can be done it would be all

that is desired for the interests of Great Britain in
communicating with America, because the termini
will be in British territory. If, however, such a
cable cannot be successfully submerged with our
present mechanical appliances, other schemes for
connecting the Old and New World are in a forward
state, and for the accomplishment of which there
will be no difficulty as far as length of sea cable is
concerned. Such, for instance, are the schemes for
connecting Europe and America by way of Iceland,
Greenland, and Labrador, by way of Cadiz, the
Cape de Verds, St. Paul, and Brazil, and by way of
Russia, Siberia, and the Aleutian isles. If India
cannot be reached by ocean cables, telegraphic com-
munication will certainly be made by way of Eastern
Europe, Asia Minor, and the Euphrates. As no
mode of communicating with India can completely
satisfy this country unless our Government can have
uncontrolled power over the telegraph, and
which cannot be the case if the intervening
wires pass through a foreign country, we
are seeing to the reconstruction or repairing of
our sea cables towards the East. It has been
already mentioned that a fresh cable has
been successfully laid down between Alexan-
dria and Malta, therefore nothing can prevent us
now from connecting telegraphically by sea lines
Malta and Gibraltar, and Gibraltar and Falmouth,
whenever we please, because each cable will not be
of greater length than the Malta and Alexandrian
one. In a month's time a cable will be submerged
between Suez and Jubal, in the Red Sea. This
will be only 300 miles long, and therefore easily
effected ; and immediate steps are to be made to
repair the cable between Aden and Kurrachee.
Before Easter, probably, we shall be able to com-
municate with all parts of India in five days, with
Hong Kong in 20 days, and with Australia in 26
days, and when the Australian land line is ex-
tended from Adelaide to Perth, in Western Aus-
tralia, in 22 days.
Russia is now strenuously exerting herself to
reach China, Japan, and_even_the United States
by telegraph beforl Englarid,can do so, except by
the use of Russiar. wires. Estafettes regularly
run between Pekin and the telegraph stations in
Asiatic Russia. Disputes have arisen between the
United States and Russian telegraphic engineers
as to the best route for passing the telegraph wires
from Asia to America. The former, knowingthe
cheapness, safety, and permanence of land wires
from experience, are:for Behring Straits route—the
latter for the route by Kamschatka and the Aleu-
tian Isles. Some English writers appear to think
that the sparseness of population in Eastern
Siberia and Russian America will prove an
insurmountable objection to the Behring
Straits route. But this very sparseness
will secure the wires from injury. Besides
the complete control which Russia knows how
to exercise over the remotest parts of her
dominions will enable her to protect the wires.
Russia will find no greater difficulty in doing this
than the United States Government has found in
protecting the wires from San Francisco to the
Western Atlantic through a country of wild In-
dians. As to the weather, so far north as Behring
Straits it will not be more formidable than in
Labrador or Greenland, where it has been pro-
nounced by competent navigators and electral engi-
neers to be no insuperable bar to telegraphic wires
and cables. The struggle between England and
Russia to reach the far East by telegraph will be a
fierce one. England will manage by-and-bye to
creep up the Red Sea from Jubal, and by repairing
the cable in the Arabian sea we shall have an un-
broken telegraph line from Malta to Rangoon, over
which we shall have complete control, for the short
telegraphic communication between Alexandria
and Suez is completely in our hands. To extend
the line from Rangoon to Singapore will not be
difficult: The French and Spanish possessions in
Cochin China will assist us up to Hong Kong, and
from thence the route to Pekin by way of Amoy,
Shanghai, and Gulf of Pecheli will be easy. From
Shanghai a telegraph cable, only 500 miles long,
would reach Nagasaki, in Japan.
In the spring of the present year it is not impos-
sible that the steam packet communication between
Galway and St. John's, Newfoundland, may be re-
established, and intelligence from all parts of the
United States and British North America would
then reach us in six days. The New York, Boston,
Halifax, and Portland packets must then make a
point of regularly getting news by telegraph from
Cape Race, in order to keep pace with the
Irish packets. At the present time the former
steamers pass Cape Race upwards of 400
times in the course of a year, and five times
out of six they fail to get or convey intelligence
from that point. Some effective plan ought to be
organised to communicate with every Transatlantic
packet passing the south-eastern point of Newfound-
land, or the Galway boats will beat the Queens-
town and Londonderry steamers in priority of in-
telligence by 3 or 4 days. When the Canadian
telegraph is extended to the mouth of the St. Law-
rence, which is shortly to be done, even the summer
Canadian mail packets, which travel the
Belle Isle
route, will beat the Cunard steamers in priority of
latter
news from the United States, if the latt ships do
not get late intelligence from Cape Race.
One great defect of the electric telegraph at:pre.
sent is the difficulty of transmitting simultaneous
messages, either in the same or in opposite direc-
tions on the same wire. hence, where there is much
traffic numerous wires have to be erected, which
appear on our railway lines like musical staves, and
which add immensely to the cost of telegraphic
messages. It is not improbable that this difficulty
will one day be overcome, and the transmission of
separate telegrams, in the same or in opposite direc-
tions, at the same time and en the same wire, be
effected. Nature exhibits phenomena something
similar to this when the vibrations of the air or the
d nlight, though crossed or overtaken
by h or undulations, convey sounds
un
other
undulations os
vibrations of
Or images to the ear or eye without distortion or
confusion. The transmission of simultaneous tele-
wire would be a consummate
grams along One
triumph of electric telegraphy.
Politically, commercially, and socially, the electric
telegraph is destined to confer vast benefits. If
Earl Russell's despatch to Lord Lyons on the Trent
affair had been transmitted to Washington in 19
minutes, instead of in 19 days, we should have had
news of the liberation of Messrs. Mason and Sli-