nication, and a committee was appointed on the subject. It was evident, indeed, that railways had by that time acquired a complete monopoly of the means of communication, not so much in consequence of the privileges conferred on the companies, as by the superior accommodation and cheapness of travelling which they afforded. It was clear, too, that there was yet ample scope for the extension of the railway system, and that nothing should be done to induce so much as a reasonable suspicion of good faith with regard to the integrity of privileges already granted, one of the elements of encouragement to future undertakings being a just and equitable dealing with those already established. Many recommendations were made by the committee respecting the rates of tolls and other means of control, and the result of this enquiry was the passing of the act in 1844,2 which provided that if the clear annual divisible profits should amount to 10 per cent. on the paid-up capital of any railway authorised in that or any subsequent session at the end of twenty-one years from the passing of the act sanctioning the line, the Lords of the Treasury might revise the tolls, fares, and charges so as to reduce the dividend to 10 per cent., such revision being, however, accompanied by a guarantee on the part of the Crown that the revised rates should produce a dividend to the company of 10 per cent. for a further period of twenty-one years.3

With the successful inauguration of railways for personal communication and the carriage of goods, we must associate the wonderful progress of steam navigation. As far back as the sixteenth century, an experiment was made to apply steam power to navigation, but with no practical results, and it was not till 1807 that practical attempts were made to render Watt's famous steam engine serviceable to navigation. It wanted the connecting-link, the use of revolving paddles instead of oars. In 1736 Jonathan Hull took out a patent for a tow boat to be propelled by a paddle wheel set in motion by a sort of steam engine. In 1788 Mr. Miller, of Dalswinston, made a small engine, by which he succeeded in moving a vessel at the rate of seven miles an hour. Symington came next with his patent, and in 1803 the Charlotte Dundas' towed vessels on the Forth and Clyde Canal. Again, however, America came up to British achievements, and Robert Fulton, in 1807, made the first successful voyage by steam from New York to Albany. In 1812 Henry

27 & 8 Vict. c. 85.

* In 1865 a Royal Commission, issued for the purpose of enquiring into various matters connected with the railways of Great Britain and Ireland, amongst other things enquired into the expediency of the purchase of railways by the State, but they reported that it was inexpedient to subvert the policy which has hitherto been adopted of leaving the construction and management of railways to the free enterprise of the people, under such conditions as Parliament may think fit to impose for the general welfare of the public.

Bell started a steamboat on the Clyde, and that was soon after followed by a boat making a passage from Glasgow to London. In 1820 packets were established between Holyhead and Dublin, and in 1838 an ocean passage was accomplished by the Great Western' from Bristol, and the 'Sirius' from Cork, to New York. Thus little by little steam navigation was introduced on rivers, on the high seas, and on the Atlantic Ocean, and what was one day a rare experiment speedily became a regular means of navigation, destined henceforth to fill the highest position in the maritime intercourse of nations, and to supersede to a large extent sailing ships, both for near and distant navigation. The diagram exhibits in a striking manner the advance made by steam over sailing ships in the mercantile marine of the United Kingdom, and with that change quite a revolution was effected in the ports and places where ships are built and repaired; steam ships being built where iron and coal are more immediately available.

A marvel even greater than the steamboat, however, is the electric telegraph. The employment of a galvanometer, lines of wire, and a battery as a means of telegraphing, was suggested by Ampère in 1820. And in 1833 Gauss and Weber, of Göttingen, united the Observatory and Physical Cabinet, distant about a mile from each other, by two wires suspended in the air. But it was only when Messrs. Cooke and Wheatstone, in 1837, patented a five-needle telegraph that the invention was first put into practical operation by the construction of a line of telegraph for general purposes, and by the application of the same to the Blackwall Railway, which, being worked by rope traction with the accommodation of intermediate stations, rendered an efficient telegraphic system necessary. By means of the telegraph a communication could be maintained between the two termini and half a dozen intermediate stations, and signals could be transmitted to and from every station at intervals of a quarter of an hour throughout the day. Other improvements were subsequently made in the telegraph by Dr. Steinheil, Professor Morse, and Mr. Davy. In 1841 Mr. Bain invented his electric telegraph, with a printing apparatus, for recording the results, of ordinary inked types. In 1843 Mr. Cooke introduced the plan of suspending the wires on posts. And after successive inventions, by which the instrument was more and more perfected and rendered fit for general use, the Electric Telegraph Company was formed in 1846, which purchased most of the patents of Messrs. Wheatstone and Cooke and of Mr. Bain, and became for a time almost the sole means by which telegraphic communication was carried on throughout the kingdom. Nor did it end there. Not content with transmitting news by electricity upon land, the thought was soon after conceived of causing it even to cross the mighty ocean, and a submarine telegraph was laid, first from Gosport to Portsmouth, then from Dublin to Holyhead,

and soon after across the Channel from Dover to Calais. It was on September 27, 1851, that the first telegraphic message reached England from the French coast. The Submarine Telegraphic Company was then formed, and they constructed other lines from Dover to Ostend, Folkestone to Boulogne. And last, though not least, came the great Atlantic telegraph, with its wonderful wire perfectly insulated amidst the mass of water in the very depth of the ocean, connecting the Old World with the American continent.

The telegraph has produced a great change in the trade of the world. With the means of almost instantaneous information, business transactions have become more rapid in execution, more certain in their character, and founded upon more diffused intelligence than when all information was communicated by letter. The range of speculation was also greatly lessened thereby, and room for great profits or losses proportionally diminished. Another great change is however impending in the introduction of the telephone. In 1876 Professor Alexander Graham Bell, of the University of Boston, in the United States, patented his improvements in electric telephony (transmitting or causing sounds for telegraphic messages) and telephonic apparatus. As described in the patent the invention consists in this. In all previous systems of telegraphy, messages have been received, either by means of chemical changes produced by the action of the electrical current, as in the various forms of automatic and autographical telegraphs; or by means of the mechanical movement of a portion of the receiving instrument operating to produce a visible signal, as in needle telegraphs; a mark upon paper or other material, as in printing telegraphs; or a sound, as in the Morse system. Upon these and all other plans it has been found difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between more than four messages transmitted simultaneously over the same circuit, two in each direction. The invention of the telephone relates to the reproduction by the necessary receiving instruments of any particular sounds or combination of sounds through the agency of an electric current, whereby a multiplicity of telegraphic messages may be sent simultaneously over a single circuit in the same or in opposite directions, and received without confusion, and whereby articulate speech may be electrically transmitted.