The Old World had twelve lines of submarine cable laid ere the United States turned their attention to the uses of such forms of telegraph. Italy had been connected with Corsica by a line 110 miles long, and Denmark had joined one of her little islands to the other, ere the Great Republic gave a thought to the matter. But there were excuses for such indifference. The Telegraphic system, to which Morse, Bain, House, and others, had given such development, although the first line was not constructed till 1844, extended rapidly all over the vast extent of the Atlantic and Gulf States. The people were on the same continent, the land was all their own, their greatest rivers could be traversed by wires; and so it was that, whilst Mr. Morse was engaged in protecting his patents, and the Americans, self-contained, were not looking beyond the limits of their shores, a British North American Province took the first step which was made at the other side of the Atlantic to lay down a submarine cable. In 1851-2 a project was started in Newfoundland, to run a line of steamers between Galway and St. John’s in connection with a telegraph to Cape Ray, where a submarine Cable was to be laid to Cape Breton, and thence the news was to be carried by means of another cable from New Brunswick to Prince Edward’s Island. The Roman Catholic Bishop of Newfoundland is stated to have been the original proposer of a scheme for connecting the island with the United States, but the credit of actually laying down the first submarine cable at the other side of the Atlantic belongs to Mr. F.N. Gisborne, an English engineer. He had been previously engaged in the telegraph department at Montreal, and had some knowledge of the subject, but he happened to be in London at the time of Brett’s success. On his return to America he applied himself to get up a Company for the purpose of facilitating telegraphic communication between Europe and the United States. After much difficulty the Company was formed, and an Act was passed by the Legislature of Newfoundland, in 1852, conferring the important privileges upon it, in event of the completion of the project in Newfoundland, which are now possessed by the Atlantic Telegraph Company. Mr. Gisborne was superintendent and engineer of the Company, and he set to work with energy to construct a road from St John’s to Cape Ray, over a barren and resourceless tract of 400 miles, and made a survey of the coast line, during which he was exposed to great hardships. He succeeded at last in laying an insulated cable, made by Newall & Co., from New Brunswick to Prince Edward’s Island across the Straits of Northumberland, 11 miles long, in 22 fathoms of water; but was not successful in a similar attempt to connect Newfoundland with Cape Breton. Meantime the Company became involved in pecuniary difficulties, and Mr. Gisborne, early in 1854, on the suspension of the works, proceeded to New York, where he hoped to find