The story of submarine telegraphy is a wonderful record of dogged perseverance in the face of tremendous obstacles and disastrous failures. It would be of no interest to trace the story to its very beginning, and so we will commence with the laying of the first cable across the English Channel from Dover to Calais, in 1850. A single copper wire covered with a layer of gutta-percha half an inch thick was used, and leaden weights were attached to it at intervals of one hundred yards, the fixing of each weight necessitating the stoppage of the cable-laying ship. The line was laid successfully, but it failed after working for a single day, and it afterwards turned out that a Boulogne fisherman had hauled up the cable with his trawl. This line proved that telegraphic communication between England and France was possible, but the enterprise was assailed with every imaginable kind of abuse and ridicule. It is said that some people really believed that the cable was worked in the style of the old-fashioned house bell, and that the signals were given by pulling the wire! In the next year another attempt was made by Mr. T. R. Crampton, a prominent railway engineer, who himself contributed half of the £15,000 required. The form of cable adopted by him consisted of four copper wires, each covered with two layers of gutta-percha, and the four enclosed in a covering formed of ten galvanized iron wires wound spirally round them. The line proved a permanent success, and this type of cable, with certain modifications, is still in use. In 1852 three attempts were made to connect England and Ireland, but the first two failed owing to the employment of cables too light to withstand the strong tidal currents, and the third was somehow mismanaged as regards the paying-out, so that there was not enough cable to reach across. A heavier cable was tried in the next year, and this was a lasting success. The success of these two cables led to the laying of many other European cables over similar distances, but we must now pass on to a very much bigger undertaking, the laying of the Atlantic cable. In 1856 the Atlantic Telegraph Company was formed, with the object of establishing and working telegraphic communication between Ireland and Newfoundland, the three projectors being Messrs. J. W. Brett, C. T. Bright, and C. W. Field. The British and the United States Governments granted a subsidy, in return for which Government messages were to have priority over all others, and were to be transmitted free. The objections launched against the scheme were of course many, some of them making very amusing reading. It is however very strange to find so eminent a scientist as Professor Airy, then Astronomer Royal, seriously stating that it was a mathematical impossibility to submerge a cable safely to such depths, and that even if this could be done, messages could not be transmitted through such a great length of cable.