Page:Ballantyne--The Battery and the Boiler.djvu/51

 lecture without dates would be pleasantly original as well as instructive?"

"No, Bob, I don't, and I won't be guilty of any such gross innovation on time-honoured custom. You must swallow my dates whether you like them or not. In 1849, I say, a Mr. Walker—"

"Any relation to Hookey?"

"No, sir, none whatever—he laid a wire from Folkestone to a steamer two miles off the shore, and sent messages to it. At last, in 1851, Mr. Brett laid down and successfully wrought the cable between Dover and Calais which had been suggested by Wheatstone eleven years before. It is true it did not work long, but this may be said to have been the beginning of submarine telegraphy, which, you see, like your own education, Bob, has been a thing of slow growth."

"Have you done with dates, now, my learned friend?" asked Bob, attempting to balance a ruler on the point of his nose.

"Not quite, my ignorant chum, but nearly. That same year—1851 remember—a Mr. Frederick N. Gisborne, an English electrician, made the first attempt to connect Newfoundland with the American continent by cable. He also started a company to facilitate intercourse between America and Ireland by means of steamers and telegraph cables. Gisborne was very energetic and