While at Cambridge he took an active part in the field sports and athletics of the Olympiad University. On August 16 Queen Victoria sent a telegram of congratulation to President Buchanan through the line, and expressed a hope that it would prove 'an additional link between the nations whose friendship is founded on their common interest and reciprocal esteem.' The President responded that, 'it is a triumph more glorious, because far more useful to mankind, what are electric cables than was ever won by conqueror on the field of battle. Moreover, it has been found that, for delicate and quick-working apparatus, such as automatic telegraphs, polarized relays, and, above all, the telephone, long underground lines are far less efficient than pole lines. Although both the English and the German systems are successfully working lines of telegraph, they are far less efficient than pole lines of the same length. The speed of signalling by the siphon recorder is of course regulated by the length of cable through which it is worked. 1. If an electric conductor be brought near to a large mass of conducting matter, as is a wire when it is taken down from a pole and buried in the earth, there appears in the current the phenomenon of retardation, by which each signal, instead of being sharp and distinct, is partly kept back, so that it overlaps and mingles with the next; the result is to limit the speed of working of the apparatus; or if, like the telephone, it be an apparatus in which the currents are necessarily extremely frequent, to confuse and destroy the signals altogether.

Speed! speed the cable! A brief review of some of the European systems that have been constructed will convince us of this. The present European system dates from 1875. The cable is similar to that used for submarine purposes. As used in the recording or writing in permanent characters of the messages sent through long submarine cables, it is the acknowledged chief of 'receiving instruments,' as those apparatus are called which interpret the electrical condition of the telegraph wire into intelligible signals. The reason of this was, that some of these cables laid in the sewers of Paris, in 1846, were still in good condition. The route was especially selected through a low and marshy section of country, so that the pipes were almost constantly filled with water-this being the best possible condition for the preservation of the gutta-percha. The details of this work were very carefully carried out, and the experiment is of interest because similar plans are constantly being proposed to-day. It must be remembered, however, that these various systems have cost from ten to twenty times as much as similar overhead lines; that, for every mile of under-ground wire, there are many miles on poles; and that in Paris, which is the only city in the world having a complete under-ground system, there are unusual facilities for the running of wires, as sewers large enough to walk about in extend even under the less important streets of the city.

In the cities, pole lines have been considered objectionable, because they disfigure the streets. Between cities, under-ground lines have been desired, because of their great safety in case of invasion, great secrecy, and reliability in case of storms. Another type of electric power cable is installed in underground ducts and is extensively used in cities where lack of space or considerations of safety preclude the use of overhead lines. In 1855 the French government, having failed in their attempt to use gutta-percha wires, laid down a large number of bare wires in a trench filled in with bituminous compounds. The recorder is now in use in all four quarters of the globe, from Northern Europe to Southern Brazil, from China to New England. Four copper wires were each wound with cotton, soaked in shellac, and the whole drawn into a lead tube. Eli5: Why is it that there are multiple copper wires inside an electric cable and why are they coiled? In England and on the Continent there has always been a strong desire to have a part, at least, of the electric wires under-ground. In any other system we have the problem of splicing and cutting of cables, which, at its best, is bad work.

Here's a quick example to illustrate the problem. With delicate relays, and more especially with quick working printing telegraphs, or automatic telegraphs, such lines are very troublesome; and, with telephones, the retardation is a very troublesome matter on under-ground lines ten miles long. Electric communication cables transmit voice messages, computer data, and visual images via electrical signals to telephones, wired radios, computers, teleprinters, facsimile machines, and televisions. Steady currents, like those used with electric lights, are, of course, not affected either by retardation or induction. If the signals on one wire of such a cable be sharp and quick, they cause fac-simile signals on all of the neighboring wires, and this too, though the insulation may be absolutely perfect; indeed, above a certain point, the more perfect the insulation the greater the induction. The result of this phenomenon is, that messages sent over one wire are liable to be received on all of the other wires, and, in the case of the telephone, this phenomenon is noticeable on cables one thousand feet long, and on a cable one mile long the parties on one wire can easily understand what those on the other wires are saying.