connection with the recorder, to all the long cables of that most
enterprising of telegraph companies--the Eastern--so that both stations
may 'speak' to each other simultaneously. Thus the carrying capacity of
the wire is in practice nearly doubled, and recorders are busy writing
at both ends of the cable at once, as if the messages came up out of the
sea itself.

We have thus far followed out the recorder in its practical application
to submarine telegraphy. Let us now regard it for a moment in its more
philosophic aspect. We are at once struck with its self-dependence as a
machine, and even its resemblance in some respects to a living creature.
All its activity depends on the galvanic current. From three separate
sources invisible currents are led to its principal parts, and are at
once physically changed. That entering the mouse-mill becomes transmuted
in part into the mechanical motion of the revolving drum, and part into
electricity of a more intense nature--into mimic lightning, in fact,
with its accompaniments of heat and sound. That entering the signal
magnet expends part of its force in the magnetism of the core. That
entering the signal coil, which may be taken as the brain of the
instrument, appears to us as INTELLIGENCE.

The recorder is now in use in all four quarters of the globe, from
Northern Europe to Southern Brazil, from China to New England. Many and
complete are the adjustments for rendering it serviceable under a wide
range of electrical conditions and climatic changes. The siphon is,
of course, in a mechanical sense, the most delicate part, but, in an
electrical sense, the mouse-mill proves the most susceptible. It is
essential for the fine marking of the siphon that the ink should neither
be too strongly nor too feebly electrified. When the atmosphere is
moderately humid, a proper supply of electricity is generated by the
mouse-mill, the paper is sufficiently moist, and the ink flows freely.
But an excess of moisture in the air diminishes the available supply of
EXALTED electricity. In fact, the damp depositing on the parts leads the
electricity away, and the ink tends to clog in the siphon. On the other
hand, drought not only supercharges the ink, but dries the paper so much
that it INSULATES the siphon point from the metal tablet and the earth.
There is then an insufficient escape for the electricity of the ink to
earth; the ink ceases to flow down the siphon; the siphon itself becomes
highly