TELEGRAPHY IN INDIA.

Southland Times, Volume I, Issue 15, 5 July 1864, Page 3

TELEGRAPHY IN INDIA.

Telegraphic engineering has a curious history, and few passages in it are more creditable than the way by which the lines were established which we shall join when the wire passes down from Kurracliee to Bombay. Thanks to Lord Dalhousie and to his scientific lieutenant, Sir William O'Shaughnessy, Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras have long be?n • united by the electric line. But it was a singular problem that presented itself to that clover Deputy Assay-Master of ; the Mint,' when, with his chief's encourageiheht,^ he .turned ' his hand to creating telegraphs for India. Let no' one. suppose that it was merely tin affair of constructing a battery, laying the -wires, nominating staff, and then the thing was done. In the first = place; Sir William discovered that the air of India is in a state of constant: electrical perturbation of the strongest sort,., so that, the instruments, then mounted' went into a' high' fever, and refused to work.. 'Along all' his' north' aiid south lines he, found a current of electricity constantly passing, which threw the needles out of gear and baflled signallers; Moreover the tremendous thunder-; storms ran up and down his .wires, and melted his conductors ; the monsQonfwinds.tore his teakposts out of the .sodden ground.; and elephants' ' and buffaloes trampled the fallen lines into kinks and tangles. Tho cotton and rice boats "kedging" U p and down the river dragged his subaqueous wires to the surface. These were some of the serious ■'Indian- difficulties ; ; but' over and^aboVe them, "Which he "met in various- and ingenious ways, there' were grwaSy-ridiculoiu' .obstacles. Wild piga and tigers 'scratched their skins against his posts -in the- jungle,-antl porcupines" and" bandicoots. burrowedv|them put; of ".the grpurid; ; The [Delta"aborigines carried off his timber supports for fuel,; and the v wires,-pr. iron rods, upon, thorn .to make ■'bracelets ■'■ f and'-fendopV,.smit]ienes:-V-If''tli6se loft them alone; "kite's, 'fishing eagles, and hooded crows came in hundreds and perclied upon thojme, to "seewhal?on/earth:it :couldiihean;;/and sometimes .after. a thunderstorm,; when*.- the! wires> were wbt, rwere fpunddeadf by dozens, perished througlvtheniduriosityl climbedty-the^osts .•and' mi along, tho lines, chattering, and drdppffig/ah-'inter-fering tail from one wire to the other, wliich tended to confound the cdnYeSatibifs of i'Calcutta, Parrots

: kung upon <^^Bm^^^^^dx^^^ ■i *tli6-'*regi te witTi" l tfie same cqutempt^for electrical insulation ;-, ana/in-:'one u-villffigel tlie -complacent natives stretched their 1 fishing -lines -to dry- upon-;-them. Sn-Wffiamp'Shaughne^sj-jhadtoencou'nter and. conqufei' "aH 'these 'odd 'and^^tmexpected -mischances before he proved, by his experimental! line and self-inventedinachines, that jail the peninsula., "could he covered Witli telpgraphaat ( ;£s6O per milp/ To him in' the ' first '-plaice, , ,and'tp >, Jppi'd , Balhousie, , in the next, it "was due' tnaifc the" idea was carried", 1 out. ? Bj ,1856 there^ere; 4QQo}iniles of telegraph . stretched over' Indian — some tippn bambop posts, . which ibendi to; the stpi"ms, ; and thus" defy' thein^rf- i some,, as inthe Madras Presidency, 1 upon .m'onohths of gi'anite—^all serviceable; -aud' in -the mutiny,. sthoy proved' to be 'worth ten' times rtheir' 'cos't.-^-. Jiaily Telegraph., : v ' } - :: ; ; - i9 P' ; .-f A ' J ;:; : ?'..«!-.