necting Falmouth with Gibraltar to a projected line from Rangoon to Singapore, where it will be laid in comparatively short lengths, and in water of such a depth that it will be easily repaired if necessary. This cable should be now on its way to its destination; but a most unexpected occurrence has delayed its progress. For greater security it was deposited in water-tanks after its manufacture; but when placed on board ship it was coiled dry; the moisture imbibed by the hemp serving being gradually squeezed out, caused the iron covering to rust; the process of rusting generates heat, and the enormous surface of iron condensed into the smallest possible compass, and supplied with continual facilities for rusting, became a perfect wick, whilst the heat evolved was such as to endanger the safety of the cable. This effect can only be prevented by not allowing an iron covered cable to be wetted, or by covering the cable with some material to exclude air from the iron, or else by keeping it immersed in fresh water until it is laid.

This concludes the account which we propose to give of the present condition of deep sea telegraphy; but the great national and pecuniary interests involved in it induce us to offer some additional observations on the highly unsatisfactory condition in which the whole matter now stands. If it is a condition of uncertainty and doubt, we cannot but feel that for this condition Government is to a great extent answerable.

The first submarine cable which was laid, viz., the line from Dover to Calais, was as great a step in Ocean Telegraphy as any which has been made since. The preliminary effort made by Mr. Brett in 1851, to show that a current could be passed across the Channel,-an effort made without proper apparatus, and without proper scientific advice,-may be compared to the more recent ill-digested scheme for connecting Europe with America by the Atlantic Telegraph. The leading engineering talent of the day was not consulted in the construction of the line, although we then possessed in Brunel and in Stephenson engineers of whom it may be said that the genius of the one would have mastered any difficulty, and the prudence of the other would have ensured the success of any undertaking.

The history of the Atlantic enterprise shows that failure was its necessary result, and yet it was made under Government sanction, and by help of assistance from the Government. No doubt the form in which this assistance was given was one of the least objectionable forms in which Government assistance could be given; viz., a payment conditional upon success; but there was no definition of what that success was to be; if one word per hour could have been transmitted, the company

might have claimed the letter of its bond. It may, however, be fairly assumed that if the Government had declined to assist the undertaking, it would at that time have gone forward perhaps more slowly, but more surely, than it did with the flourish of Government help. The shareholders who advanced 1000Z. a piece in London and Liverpool did so for a national experiment, and not with the sole thought of gain. But even if it had not gone forward then, and if we had continued to advance by slow and sure steps in Ocean Telegraphy, it would have been better for science, better for our credit as a practical nation, and better for those whose property now lies irrecoverably lost at the bottom of the Atlantic.

Between 1852, when the first successful Dover cable was laid and 1856, telegraphic enterprise had progressed rapidly. The lengths of submarine lines laid by private companies, without Government assistance, had increased from 25 miles, the Dover and Calais line, to 125 miles, the Orfordness and Schevening line; and in 1858 a line was laid from England to Denmark, 350 miles in length: for these lines no Government aid has been asked or given. They are all exposed to strong competition, and yet it has been found worth the while of private companies to lay them. The published correspondence shows that repeated applications were made to the Government, between 1852 and 1856, to assist telegraphic enterprises, but the Government declined giving assistance, except by requesting their ambassadors and ministers at foreign Courts to help Englishmen who were endeavouring to procure foreign concessions. In 1855, the East India Company informed Mr. Gisborne that if he completed a line of telegraph to Alexandria, they would be prepared to consider with a liberal spirit any proposition for the extension of the line to India. In 1856, the Treasury were in possession of several applications for Government assistance towards lines in the Mediterranean. Amongst others, a proposal was made by Messrs. Brett and Pinniger, for assistance to be given to a line promoted by the Austrian Government, to be laid from Ragusa to Corfu and Alexandria. Upon this proposal being made, the whole question appears to have been considered, and Mr. Wilson, the Secretary of the Treasury, laid down in a minute, dated the 15th August, 1856, the definition of what the Treasury considered should be the policy of the Government with respect to telegraphic communication in the Mediterranean and the East. That policy was, that the Government should support telegraphic lines by subscriptions or by guarantees of the capital involved; rather than by the construction of the lines themselves.

As a result of the decision of the Treasury, it appears that the Government guaranteed for the construction of the proposed Ragusa, Corfu, and Alexandria line, 6 per cent. upon a sum of 250,000% for twenty-five years, payable whether the line was in working order or not; and the Austrian Government guaranteed a similar sum, making 500,000l. in all, for the construction of this line. The line has, however, never been constructed. The Government then guaranteed the Atlantic Telegraph; the Cagliari, Malta, and Corfu Telegraph; the Channel Islands Telegraph, conditionally on the successful working of the lines; and they gave to the Red Sea Company a guarantee, not fettered by the necessity of keeping the line in working order. These guaranteed lines have all failed. A guarantee of interest so long as it is limited to a certain amount, and so long as it is only to be paid while the line is capable of doing a specified amount of work, is one of the least objectionable modes of support which can be given, but even this mode has objections; the name of a government guarantee itself, shows a want of confidence of the promoters in their own enterprise, and tends to diminish that habit of self-reliance which is the source of our commercial success. It is perfectly legitimate that the Government, if it requires a service, should pay for that service, but let the sum to be paid be a definite amount for a specific quantity of work, as is the case in packet contracts, that the Government and the country may know exactly in what position it stands, instead of allowing the amount to be dependent, as it is in a guarantee, upon the good or bad management of the directors of the company. When, however, the Government gives a guarantee which ensures to the shareholders a specified rate of interest, whatever the working expenses and whatever the condition of the line may be; and which guarantee is to last for a specified number of years, whether the enterprise is a failure or a success, as is the case of the Red Sea Telegraph and of the Ragusa and Alexandria Telegraph; the injury done to the spirit of public enterprise is incalculable.

If the failure of the Red Sea Telegraph should cause the Government and Parliament to discontinue this system of guarantees, the nation will be in some degree repaid for all the money this guarantee has cost, and will continue to cost us, although we fear that it may be some years before telegraphic enterprise is restored to a healthy condition. Guaranteed telegraphic lines have unfortunately been got up generally by persons unacquainted with the subject, and have been placed by the promoters in the hands either of contractors, who were, of course, only interested in the lines being laid in such a

manner as to work for the few days required by the contract; or in the hands of engineers, who at the time when they undertook the work, had not attained the highest rank in their profession. The promoters appear to have studiously avoided the employment of the leading engineering talent of the country, and the Government when it had control, appears to have countenanced this line of conduct. Stephenson and Brunel would not have allowed the Atlantic Telegraph to be laid upon their responsibility, without proper preliminary experiments being made; and it is to the absence of a proper scientific appreciation of the difficulties of these enterprises, that we entirely attribute the disasters and disappointments to which they have been subjected.

The question of Ocean Telegraphy is, however, at present in abeyance. Sir Leopold McClintock, in H.M.S. Bulldog,' and Captain Allen Young, in the Fox,' have just completed a survey of the proposed route for a telegraphic line by way of Greenland to America. It is understood that the officers who accompanied the expedition are sanguine of the success of the proposed line. The ships experienced difficulties in passing through the ice which encumbered the coast of Greenland; but it is alleged that these difficulties were exceptional, and a consequence of the unusual inclemency of the season; at any rate, they are sufficient to prevent the laying or repairing of a telegraphic cable in similar seasons, and the promoters of the enterprise should therefore carefully consider the means of overcoming these difficulties before they finally embark in the undertaking. It cannot be too strongly urged that before laying a telegraphic cable, the selection of the route which it is to traverse should be guided by a detailed survey of the bottom of the ocean, so as to ascertain the inequalities of the surface as well as the materials of which it is composed. We do not know what course the line from England to America will eventually take: whether the North Atlantic Company, under the guidance of Colonel Shaffner, will succeed in laying and maintaining the line by way of the Faroe Islands, Iceland, and Greenland, through the inhospitable territory of Labrador to Canada; or whether the company which has just obtained a concession from the Portuguese Government for a line to Lisbon, will carry a line to America by a southern route; or whether the Atlantic Company will lay another direct line-but of this we are convinced, that at no very distant period submarine telegraphs, established on sound principles and in a durable manner, will encircle the globe.

ART. VI. Autobiography of the Rev. Dr. Alexander Carlyle, Minister of Inveresk; containing Memorials of the Men, and Events of his Times. 8vo. Edinburgh and London: 1860. THIS book contains by far the most vivid picture of Scottish life and manners that has been given to the public since the days of Sir Walter Scott. In bestowing upon it this high praise, we make no exception, not even in favour of Lord Cockburn's 'Memorials,' the book which resembles it most, and which ranks next to it in interest. Indeed, even going beyond the range of our Scottish experience, we doubt whether there is anywhere to be found as trustworthy a record of the domestic, social, and intellectual life of a whole bygone generation, or an appreciation of the individual peculiarities of the persons by whom that generation was led, as shrewd and unprejudiced, as has been bequeathed to us by this active, high-spirited, claret-drinking, play-going, and yet withal worthy and pious Minister of the

Kirk.

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The term autobiography scarcely describes it correctly. far more accurate notion of its contents would have been conveyed, had the editor adhered to that which Dr. Carlyle himself seems from the opening sentence to have contemplatedviz., 'Anecdotes and Characters of the Times.' The subjective element, which in modern autobiography plays so great a part, is almost entirely wanting; for though the worthy Minister of Inveresk often indulged in a little harmless vanity, and even defended it as a passion that is easy to be intreated, and that 'unites freely with all the best affections,' he took far too lively an interest in the characters of his friends to be very deeply absorbed in the contemplation of his own, or very solicitous to analyse it for the amusement of others. Those of his readers, therefore, whose peculiar taste lies in the direction of confessions are doomed to disappointment. But we believe they will be the only disappointed readers; and those, at all events, who regard the study of the past somewhat in the same light as foreign residence or travel, and consider that the chief benefit which both confer consists in delivering us from conventional narrowness, by bringing us in contact with life under new circumstances, will be of opinion that this book, whatever it may be called, is not only an entertaining, but a highly instructive one.

Before proceeding to lay before our readers the extracts in which we purpose, somewhat beyond our wont, to indulge,