this room would contain sixty-four batteries of twenty-four pairs of plates each! The batteries are on the old and imperfeet system, consisting of mahogany troughs lined with marine glue; the metals, copper and zinc plates, acted on by dilute sulphuric acid in sand. For equability or more recent improvements. We are persuaded that when the Company is in full operation, expedition will necessitate some better source of motive influence than these. The wires proceeding from these instruments run along the side of the wall to the end of the room, where they are collected and conveyed up to the conversing apparatus of the building. Each battery is lettered and numbered, and the wires also. In fact, were it not for some contrivance of the kind, the smallest derangement would stop the whole business of the building. From hence, after wondering at the rude and simple source of that swift and silent tongue, which, while we were examining the batteries, was delivering an express message at Birmingham, we were shown past two fiery furnaces into a larger vault. This apartment is fitted to contain a very large number of galvanic batteries. Shelf above shelf, battery after battery, stand there, each performing its part in this noble undertaking. Attendants are constantly engaged in supplying different parts of the apparatus with fresh acid, and in keeping all at the proper working intensity; earthen vessels, something like the old-fashioned china coffee-pots, being used for containing and supplying the acid and water. The batteries in this apartment are for the service of the apparatus speaking with all the other districts not supplied by the first. We have thus seen the electro-vocal organs of the metropolis by which she addresses her far-distant children in "merrie England," or her northern rivals, Edinburgh and Glasgow. offices. Four Doric pillars supporting the gallery at each end form the lower division, and four Corinthian pillars the upper, of this screen. The counters to which the messages to be transmitted are brought, are beneath the gallery at each end. The counters on the west side are for correspondence with the northern and west-power they are not to be compared with some of the ern districts; those on the east side with the eastern and southern districts. Immediately behind the counters are four large windows, on which the names of the districts corresponded with are painted in black letters, and arranged in alphabetical order, so that the applicant is at once directed by his eye to the proper place for despatching his message. Before leaving the hall and entering upon the scientific portion of our subject, we may stop to admire the general effect of the interior. The elegant rows of pillars and pilasters, painted so as narrowly to resemble porphyry in the lower story, and veined marble in the upper, are in glittering contrast with the very delicate green with which the walls are coloured. Two massively supported galleries run round the upper portion, on the lower of which a tasteful rail supports a number of gas-lights. The trusses supporting these galleries are richly ornamented, and give the idea of great solidity to the structure they uphold. On the ground-floor, immediately opposite the entrance, is a handsome apartment, not yet completed, called the "Subscribers' Room;" and on the wall is a colossal map of England, streaked in a perplexing manner with a large number of red lines, showing the present extent and ramification of the electric telegraph lines belonging to the Company. Two electric clocks, made by Mr. Bain, are placed on the wall opposite the entrance, the upper one being of very costly workmanship. The entire length of this noble structure is about seventy feet; its breadth about thirty-eight feet. The offices for carrying on the business of the Company, the electric correspondence, &c., are conveniently arranged at the eastern and western extremities, and consist of a series of capacious apartments admirably designed for carrying on a very large amount of business, and each having an electric clock, indicating London railway time, as is the case throughout the lines now. We were next ushered into a long vault lit by gas from the roof, along which tubes and pipes run in perplexing numbers to different parts of the building. A long, curious-looking oaken box, divided into three divisions, and connected with a square narrow trough, which we lost in the distance, was fixed on the wall. Just above the centre of it, an open pipe appears, from Let us now descend into the vaults. As we whence issues a stream of wires, which, flowing went down, the hot air of the ventilating fur-into the long box, divides into a multitude of naces, the glare of the fires and gas-light, the bustle of workmen busy in completing the fitting-up of the lower offices, gave us a peculiar impression not easy to be conveyed in words. Passing several convenient but unimportant rooms, we were conducted into a small apartment containing the galvanic batteries for the service of the North-Western line. On each side of this room are four shelves, upon which the batteries are placed; of these there are four pairs on each shelf, so that when in full work single fibres, each connected with a brass peg at the upper part of the box. These are the nerves of thought; rather, we should say, for the transmission of thought, from, and conversely to, the cities and hamlets of Britain. What a subject for admiration is this! What messages of life and death, of poverty and wealth, of health and disease, of success and ruin, of prosperous voyages and disastrous shipwrecks, fly along these wires! What messages of swift justice overtaking plunder and crime ! What whispers of suspicion-what news of gloom | manner in which the men employed by the Com-what vast commercial intelligences, dart along pany both spoke of and dealt with the delicate them to their distant destination! And the and intricate duties committed to them. We wonder is, all this while the metal channels give have often been struck with the fact, that be the no outward sign of their office. Surely, thought project ever so scientific, and let it demand we, here is Fame's trumpet-an iron pipe from the meanest servant engaged in its execufull of galvanic wires! But to descend into tion ever so much intellect and tact, the medetail. chanics and working-men of Great Britain will always readily supply the need out of their ranks. We confess that a jolly, good-humouredlooking fellow, who would from outward aspect have made a capital bricklayer or farmer's labourer, speaking of the electric "wires," of "lead-contact," and "earth-contact," of "indicators," and "deflections," afforded us as pleasant a subject for thought as we have had for many a day. And a great comfort it is to reflect, to those who can take comfort out of the advancing intelligence of their humbler countrymen, that it is neither manner nor outside which makes the Nineteenth Century Man. This box is called the "test box." The row of brass pegs at the top are connected, as has been seen, with the country wires; the row at the bottom, with a corresponding number of wires called the "house wires," which run from the box along the trough before mentioned, and thence spread out to supply the different machines on each side of the building. The connexion between the upper pegs and the lower, that is, between the metropolis and the country, is by means of brass-loops, which go over one peg at the top and its fellow at the bottom; thus securing continuity of the current. A little incident which occurred during our presence in this apartment will indicate the utility of this apparatus. It had been signalled that a certain No. 11 wire was weak; this wire was laid down to a post in the Waterloo Road. Thither a man was despatched, to endeavour to get at it and put it in repair; meanwhile, a little instrument called the " detector" was attached to the No. 11 wire peg in the box. After some delay, the wire was discovered, and instantly the needle of the "detector" deflected; the defect was remedied, and all went on as before. The wires from the termini of the several railways connected with this Company, being properly coated so as to secure their isolation, are conveyed along the streets in pipes underneath the pavement, the laying down of which must have been an enormous expense. Thus converging from all England, they enter a pipe which, running up the court, pierces the wall of the vault, and there pours forth its wonderful contents into the "test box," and from thence, by the connecting links, to the telegraphic apparatus. The large number of twenty-seven come from the North Western Railway alone, in consequence of the highly important districts with which it is in connexion; nine from the South Western; nine from the South Eastern; nine from the Eastern Counties; nine from the branch office in the Strand, and from Windsor; nine from the Admiralty; and nine are labelled in the test-box "Waste," intended to meet future demands, or casualties. Arrangements are not yet quite complete with a few of the railways, which still continue to reserve the use of their telegraphic lines to themselves; but, doubtless, these will shortly be .effected, and thus every town of importance will have its own voice to the common ear of this great city. Before quitting the vaults, we could not help smiling to ourselves as we noticed the familiar Emerging at length, after this minute survey, from these heated and bustling regions, we shall now have the pleasure of conducting the reader with us consecutively through the remaining business in hand. We are once more in the spacious hall. A gentleman rushes in, posthaste, eagerly asks for the Birmingham counter, hastens there, and, seizing a pen, calls for the proper form for sending an important message instanter to that town. He rapidly, and in as few words as possible, writes his message, when it appears in the following form : The Electric Telegraph Company. To BIRMINGHAM. named Charges. who has "A clerk of Z. & Co., Bankers, has just been robbed of £5,000 in Bank notes. Suspicion falls upon a man dressed left Euston Square Station by express at 12 this day. Stop him at Birmingham." Forthwith flies the paper into an office behind the counter, called the "translating office." As this message relates to a felony, it is left in its original language, put into a pigeon-hole by tre translating clerk, who then touches an alarum ringing in a room above. Up goes the paper with a winch, and it has now reached the hands of the telegraphist. Leaving the gentleman to pace the hall in feverish expectation of the answer, let us follow the paper upstairs. Long | a bitterly cold morning in town, and we had had before we can arrive at the proper machine for a slight fall of snow, so that our first question Birmingham, the paper is there before us, and with our invisible correspondent was whether it the telegraphist, sticking it on a couple of hooks was snowing at Southampton just then? Before at one side of the apparatus, was already we had time to think of the probable answer, actively employed in calling to his fellow at the message was up, "No." "Had any steamers Birmingham to be on the alert for the message; left port this morning?" With the same then swiftly working the two handles to and celerity came back the instantaneous "No." We fro, with a rapidity to us quite astonishing, then asked our Southampton friend to ring the while the vibrating needles quivered and danced bell of the machine before our eyes? The first in all possible ways, the important news flew reply was not so quick as usual. He was asked down the wire until it was completely ren- to do so again, and in four seconds the tinkle of dered. The Birmingham telegraphist, in order the apparatus was heard! We had some curito ensure the correctness of the message, repeats osity to know the state of the weather also at it to his fellow in London. Then comes the Norwich, and proceeding to that machine we put the same question, and with equal speed received the same answer. We were surprised at the expertness of the telegraphists, many of whom could not help wondering at the facility with were mere youths of fifteen or sixteen; and which they read off the (to us unintelligible) quiverings of a couple of blue needles. The other night the case we have imagined above really took place; a message was sent from Manchester to the following effect. "A woman answer "He shall be stopped." It is entered on a similar form to the foregoing, put into the box, wound down stairs, and handed to our anxious friend, who, after liquidating the charges, hastens away to his employers to devise means for recovering the stolen property. At the bottom of each form are the following words : These particulars are all duly entered into books kept for the purpose, corresponding in fact to the day-book of a tradesman. Thus a constant register is kept of messages sent, and of the exact time consumed in transmitting them. We have mentioned the words "translating office." This is a department in which, for expedition's sake, the messages are converted into electric language, or in other words are put into the code of the Company. But commercial messages chiefly are those which are thus abbreviated, such as ship lists, share lists, prices current, prices of corn, &c. We asked one of the telegraphists at what rate per minute the words of a message were transmitted. He answered that he had signalled so many as ten words in a minute, but that the average was four or five. Of course, therefore, the speed with which a message is sent varies according to the quantity of words it contains; and we may add, the charges have the same variability. We were also informed that the average amount of work done by one machine connected with the North-Western lines equals 1,500 words in a day. Much, however, of this business is the "express" intelligence continually sent to and fro, for the supply of the "subscription rooms" of the Company. By the kindness of the obliging superintendent we were allowed to put one or two of their machines to the test. We therefore wished for a little conversation with Southampton. It was (1) The Electro-Magnetic Telegraphs are on Cooke and Wheatstone's principle. named dressed has left Manchester for were, |