The earth is spanned and the ocean pierced by the wires of the electric telegraph. Already, from the banks of the Thames to the shores of the Adriatic, our electric messenger will do our bidding. The telegraph is making its way through Italy, and it is dipping its wires in the Mediterranean, soon to reach the coast of Africa. They will then run along the African shores to Egypt and Turkey, and still onward until they unite with the telegraphs of India, of which three thousand miles are in progress. From Hindostan these wondrous wires will run from island to island in the Indian Archipelago, and thus connect Australia and New Zealand with Europe. In a few years we may expect to have an instantaneous report in London of the extraordinary “nugget” discovered by some fortunate gold-digger; and the exile from his native land in the Islands of the South Pacific Ocean, may learn every hour, if he will, of the doings of his family and friends in some village home of England. FOOTNOTES: [136] _Traité de Physique_: M. Biot, vol. vii. Becquerel: Annales de Chimie, vol. xlvi.-xlix. Faraday’s _Experimental Researches in Electricity_, 2 vols., 1830-1844. _A Speculation touching Electric Conduction and the Nature of Matter_: by Michael Faraday, D.C.L., F.R.S.; Philosophical Magazine, vol. xxiv., 1836. _Objections to the theories severally of Franklin, Dufay, and Ampère, with an attempt to explain Electrical Phenomena by statical or undulatory polarization_: by Robert Hare, M.D., Emeritus Professor of Chemistry in the University of Pennsylvania. [137] “A good piece of gutta percha will insulate as well as an equal piece of shell-lac, whether it be in the form of sheet, or rod, or filament; but being tough and flexible when cold, as well as soft when hot, it will serve better than shell-lac in many cases where the brittleness of the latter is an inconvenience. Thus it makes very good handles for carriers of electricity in experiments on induction; not being liable to fracture in the form of thin band or string, it makes an excellent insulating suspender; a piece of it in sheet makes a most convenient insulating basis for anything placed on it. It forms excellent insulating plugs for the stems of gold-leaf electrometers, when they pass through sheltering tubes, and larger plugs form good insulating feet for electrical arrangements; cylinders of it, half an inch or more in diameter, have great stiffness, and form excellent insulating pillars. In these and in other ways its power as an insulator may be useful.”--_On the use of Gutta Percha in Electrical Insulation_: by Dr. Faraday; Philosoph. Mag., March, 1848. The following deductions have been given by Faraday, in his _Researches in Electricity_, a work of most extraordinary merit, being one of the most perfect examples of fine inductive philosophy which we possess in the English language:-- “All bodies conduct electricity in the same manner from metals to lacs and gases, but in very different degrees.