By way of illustration of such alternate routes, it may be mentioned that the two wires from the Head Post Office in Small Street for Swansea run underground to Stapleton Road, at which point they are brought above ground and diverge, one running to Wee Lane, thence to Ashley Hill, Horfield, Almondsbury, Alveston Ship, Falfield and Berkeley, up to the Severn Bridge; and the other branching off at the end of Stapleton Road, and carried along the Fishponds and Chipping Sodbury roads nearly to Yate, and down the Tortworth road to just beyond Falfield, where it joins the other Swansea and South Wales wires, and passes over the Severn Bridge into Wales. The telegraph and telephone wires in this district are chiefly erected and maintained by soldiers of the Royal Engineers. Sixteen military telegraphists, members of the Royal Engineers, are attached to the Bristol Post Office, and kept in training for telegraph service with the army. Twelve of them are now--November, 1899--in South Africa on active service, in connection with the troubles in the Transvaal. In the great hurricane which occurred in January, 1899, the telephone and telegraph wires radiating from Bristol were blown down in all directions. In consequence Bristol was entirely cut off from direct telephonic communication with Birmingham for 21 hours, and had only one wire instead of two for 9-1/4 hours; from Bath for 18 hours, and had only one wire instead of two for 5-1/2 hours; from Cardiff for 18 hours, and had only two wires instead of three for 10-1/2 hours; from Weston-super-Mare entirely for 24-1/2 hours; from Taunton for 28-1/2 hours; from Exeter for 27 hours; from Sharpness for 26 hours. There was only one wire instead of two to Gloucester for 26-1/4 hours, to London for 6 hours, and to Newport for 20-3/4 hours. The trunk telephone lines were more or less interrupted for a week, caused by the working parties engaged on repairs. The telegraph wires for the counties of Gloucester, Somerset, Monmouth, Warwick, Shropshire, Worcester, Wilts, Devon, Cornwall and Lancashire were those chiefly deranged.