Mr. Wm. Robinson, of this country, is about to erect and manage, in Sweden and Norway, a number of lines of mag netic telegraph. Ile has been granted the privilege for the enterprise, which is to endure for fifty years ; and a company, including several heavy capitalists in this city (N. Y.) and Stockholm, has been formed under his auspices.
Messrs. Westbrook and Rogers, of this country, have invented a telegraph which records signs on a metallic surface con nected with the earth by a wire conductor at one end, and to a galvanic battery and the earth at the other end of the circuit, by the use of acidulated water or other fluid. The patentees claim "recording telegraphic signs on the surface of a re volving metallic cylinder plate, or other equivalent surface, by means of an acidu lated or saline solution, or water held be tween the point of the wire conductor and the metallic recording surface, by means of a non-conducting porous sub stance contained in a glass or other non condensing reservoir in which the record ing fluid is contained, to which the elec tric current from the battery is. applied by means of any of the known forms of man ipulators and anvils used for making and breaking the circuit. The recording fluid being employed to the metallic recording surface substantially in the manner here in fully set forth, by which the use of every description of paper is dispensed with, thereby saving great expense in telegraphing." Bakewell's electric copying telegraph is very similar to Bain's. Messrs Barlow and Foster have made improvements in insulating and transmitting the currents.
The limits of this wine do not admit of entering upon these more fully.
On the 27th August, 1850, an experi ment was commenced at Dover, England, for establishing a telegraph between it and Calais, in France. The steamer Goliath took the wires and machinery on board. The wire, to the extent of 30 miles, and covered with gutta-percha, was wound on a drum revolving between the paddle wheels. Cape Grinez, on the French coast, was fixed as the point nearest Dover, be ing 21 miles distant. The wires being made fast on the English side, and the vessel steaming five miles per hour, the wire as it unwound passed over the stern of the steamer into the water, and was sunk to the bottom by weights of 25 lbs. each. The wires were carried on the French side up the declivity of the cape 124 feet. It was carried up to Shak spear's Cliff, on the Dover side. On the next day, the batteries being affixed, the line worked with complete success ; the greatest depth of water was 180 feet. This fact has shown that there is no dif ficulty in telegraphing through the ocean if the wires be not deranged.
It has been proposed to extend tele graph wires across the Atlantic, between Halifax or Boston and the west coast of Ireland. It is difficult to understand, however, how these could be sunk to the bottom of the ocean, which is between 2 and 8 miles deep in some places, and if not sunk the floating wires are liable to damage from icebergs or fish.