Page:Heroes of the telegraph (IA cu31924031222494).djvu/113

 front door was removed, the courtyard temporarily covered with an iron roof and the whole decorated in the grandest style. Over the gateway was a gallery filled with the band of the Scots Fusilier Guards; and over the portico of the house door hung the grapnel which brought up the 1865 cable, made resplendent to the eye by a coating of gold leaf. A handsome staircase, newly erected, permitted the guests to pass from the reception-room to the drawing-room. In the grounds at the back of the house stood the royal tent, where the Prince of Wales and a select party, including the Duke of Cambridge and Lady Mayo, wife of the Viceroy of India at that time, were entertained at supper. Into this tent were brought wires from India, America, Egypt, and other places, and Lady Mayo sent off a message to India about half-past eleven, and had received a reply before twelve, telling her that her husband and sons were quite well at five o'clock the next morning. The recorder, which was shown in operation, naturally stood in the place of honour, and attracted great attention.

The minor features of the recorder have been simplified by other inventors of late; for example, magnets of steel have been substituted for the electro-magnets which influence the swinging coil; and the ink, instead of being electrified by the mouse-mill, is shed on the paper by a rapid vibration of the siphon point.

To introduce his apparatus for signalling on long submarine cables, Sir William Thomson entered into a partnership with Mr. C. F. Varley, who first applied condensers to sharpen the signals, and Professor Fleeming Jenkin, of Edinburgh University. In conjunction with the latter, he also devised an 'automatic curb sender,' or key, for sending messages on a cable, as the well-known Wheatstone transmitter sends them on a land line.