All those who are acquainted with the cable-lifting branch of submarine telegraphy are well aware how important a matter it is in grappling to be certain of the instant the cable is hooked. This importance increases, of course, with the age and consequent weakness of the material, as the injury caused by dragging a cable along the bottom is obviously very great. [Illustration: ELECTRICAL GRAPNEL FOR SUBMARINE CABLES AND TORPEDO LINES.] It is easy also to understand the fact that in nearly all cases the most delicate dynamometers must fail to indicate immediately the presence of the cable on the grapnel, more especially in those cases where a considerable amount of slack grapnel rope is paid out. In many cases, therefore, the grapnel will travel through a cable without the slightest indication (or at least reliable indication) occurring on the dynamometer, and perhaps several miles beyond the line of cable will be dragged over, either fruitlessly, or to the peril of neighboring cables; whereas, should the engineer be advised of the cable's presence on the grapnel, the break will probably be avoided and the cable lifted; at any rate, the position of the cable will be an assured thing. My own knowledge of cable grappling has convinced me of these facts; and I am well assured that those engineers at least who have been engaged in grappling for cables in great depths, or for weak cables in shallow water, will heartily agree with me. In addition to the foregoing remarks re the insufficiency of the dynamometer as an instrument for indicating the presence of a cable on the grapnel, I might remind engineers of the troubles and perplexities which occur incessantly in dragging over a rocky bottom. The grapnel hooks a rock, a large increase of strain is indicated on the dynamometer, and it becomes doubtful whether the cable as well is hooked or not. Again, it frequently happens in grappling over a rocky bottom that one or more prongs are broken off, the grapnel thus becoming useless, great waste of time being thus occasioned. Fully realizing all the difficulties herein enumerated, it occurred to me that a grapnel might be constructed in such a manner as to automatically signal by electrical means the hooking of the cable, while it would ignore all strain that external causes might bring to bear on it, and thereby obviate the uncertainties attached to the use of the grapnels at present in vogue. To effect this, I designed early in 1881 a grapnel fitted in each prong with an insulated conducting surface, and a plunger and pin so arranged that the cable, when hooked, should, by the pressure that it would bring to bear on any of the plungers, cause the pin to come in contact with the conducting surface, itself in electrical communication with any suitable current detecter and battery on board the repairing ship, and thereby complete the circuit. This grapnel was successfully used on the Anglo-American Telegraph Company's repairing steamer Minia