The Sun.
London, England, 1851-09-26 00:00:00

(4- itnina uith

LONDON, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 185

Wonderful as have been the achievements already
accomplished during this memorable year of 1851,
perhaps the most extraordinary of all has yet to he
recorded. It may be calculated with some degree of
certainty that by the time our broadsheet of this
evening goes to press England and France will be
effectually linked together by means of the electric
telegraph. From the report of yesterday's proceed-
ings in the Channel in reference to this remarkable
enterprise, it will be perceived that every preparation
bad been made for the immediate completion of a
project hitherto conducted under the most brilliant
and encouraging auspices. The marvellous and
almost miraculous annals of science contain no chap-
ter more enthralling than that already dedicated
to the narrative of this unparalleled under-
taking—one which cannot fail to shed a
lustre on the age, while it must tend inevitably to
unite the most hostile nations by a friendship not the
less calculated to prove permanent from the circum-
stance that its continuance will be mutually advan-
tageous. Everything associated with the great work
here adverted to cannot fail to be peculiarly attrac-
tive even to the most phlegmatic members of the.
population, appealing irresistibly to their sympathies,
and exercising a boundless charm over their imagina-
tions. Even when the inhabitants of the two coun-
tries have become habituated to the marvel of this
submarine interchange of intelligence, the record of its
original establishment will still continue to be fraught
to them with fascination. They will revert with
undiminished, or rather, if possible, with increasing
interest to the facts narrated this day by ourselves and
our contemporaries, and will ponder over those de-
tails as having transpired in the famous year when
the peoples of the world flocked to the capital of
Great Britain to witness the unprecedented splendour
of the Great Industrial Exhibition.
Reference to the account furnished elsewhere in
this evening's impression of our journal, will show
the satisfactory manner in which the wire of the
submarine telegraph between Dover and Calais was
payed off in the Channel yesterday. It will be seen
from the narrative of the reporter, that the vessels
having charge of the great cable destined to connect
together the shores of France and England arrived in
Dover Harbour by four o'clock in the morning —the
vessels engaged in the enterprise, consisting of three
steam tugs attendant upon the Blazer, on board of
which latter bad been duly coiled the whole of the
twenty-five miles of gutta percha and metallic tubing
required in the operation. Several distinguished
members of the scientific world appear to have taken
part in the expedition, which shortly after sunrise,
namely, at seven o'clock, a.m., started for the shores
of the Republic, having previously landed one end of
the cable on the South Foreland, and placed in
guard over it a party of competent superintendents.
While the distance between the extremities of the
wire gradually increased as the Blazer receded from
the English side of the Channel, the maintenance of
the line of communication was announced by a feu
de joie being fired through the whole length of
twenty-five miles of wire to the temporary station
established on the South Foreland, constituting, as
is well said, a species of " electrical cannonade," the
detonations of which were continued at regular in-
tervals throughout the day, the several discharges
being responded to by reiterated acclamations.
Those who were fortunate enough to witness the
proceedings could not but be profoundly interested in
an event so eminently attractive to the philosopher and
the experimentalist. So triumphantly successful was
the conduct of the entire enterprise, that long before

midnight the submarine telegraph had been laid to
within two miles and a half of the French coast, cu-
riously enough, in a position exactly between the
little fishing place of Sanngat, in the Pas de Calais,
and the Kentibh village of Sandgate. This morning
will, of course, have witnessed the completion of the
whole of this arduous and wonderful undertaking, so
small and comparatively insignificant a portion of the
enterprise last night remaining to be accomplished.
Throughout the passage of the Blazer across the
Channel, it may be interesting to mention that
repeated communications were dispatched to and fro
between the vessel and the South Foreland, not
merely by the needle telegraphs of HENLEY, REID,
COOK. and WHEATSTONE, but also by the printing
apparatus of Messrs. BRETT, the original projectors
of the submarine telegraph, and by the monosyllable
" fire" being given from side to side, followed by the
ignition of fusees and the consequent detonation of
what has already been termed the " electrical can-

nonade." Each of these explosions must have sounded
in the ears of those parties who ware engaged in the
operation as an additional encouragement, and as a
kind cf supplementary augury of the success likely
to attend the whole of the transaction. Nothing, in
short, could by possibility have been more satisfac-
tory in every respect than the progress made in
the carrying out of the intentions of the two Go-
vernments.

Immediately on the establishment of the station on
the coast of France a direct line of instantaneous
communication will have been fixed between Dover
and Paris, a line extended in England to London and
on, on, on northwards to Edinburgh, while it will

ultimately stretch across France through many of the
principal capitals of Europe to the further extremity
of the continent, branching off ulteriorly by the upper
shore of the Adriatic along that direct route which is
to unite, by a series of trunk railways, the mother
country with Ilindostan. Imagination becomes
bewildered indeed by the unlimited specula-
tions suggested by this most astonishing
enterprise, an enterprise which will at

once render immediate communication possible be•
tween Paris and London, between the Foreign-office
in the Rue des Capucines and the Foreign-office in
Downing-street, between the Councils of her Britan-

nic ALoasTY and those of the Ttepublic PRESIDENT.
An enterprise, moreover, which will, before long, by
necessity, enable us to hold a correspondence within

an interval of a few minutes with persons resident in
the capitals of Spain or Belgium, of Austria or Russia,

of Italy or Switzerland—messages flashing back

wards and forwards perpetually between London

Madrid, liruszcls, Turin, Lucerne, Vienna, and St.
Petersburgh. Incredulity may be expressed by some
on the perusal of these conjectures, but whoever
would gainsay the speedy possibility, or rather, we
should say, the certainty of these things, must have
forgotten, or may be ignorant of the marvels which
have long since been of daily recurrence amongst
ourselves : they must overlook the fact that
while they may be strolling indifferently over the flag.
stones of the Strand there are questions and answers
flashing to and fro between the offices respectively
situated at Charing-cross and in Liverpool—a few
inches under the pavement—silently, but with un-
erring certainty—outstripping the winds—bewilder-
ing the fancy—and rendering man little less than a

magician by means of the simple but everlasting laws
of electricity. Familiarized 23 we are by this time

with liuch astounding wonders, we can, in some

measure at lec.t, rPaliz3 the likelihood of the miracles

of science we have spoken of as approachiog just
now the period of their accomplishment.

The feQlin.,z, of satisfaction which we experienced
from the announcement by Sir GEORGE Guar, in
reply to a question put to him by Mr. CHARLES
LUEHINGTON, that the subject of amending the law
for the regulation of lunatic a3ylums was under his
consideration, was consideraly allayed by the subse-
quent statement, made in the last week of the late
session of Parliament by the Rai of SHAFTESBURY,
that the task of introducing a measure to effect that
object would, during the course of the ensuing ses-
sion, be in all probability confided to his care. The
antecedents of the Noble Earl are not such as to in-