not be recalled without emotion.

On the 17th December 1870, a physicist who has left in the University
of Paris a lasting name, M. d'Almeida, at that time Professor at the
Lycee Henri IV. and later Inspector-General of Public Instruction,
quitted Paris, then besieged, in a balloon, and descended in the midst
of the German lines. He succeeded, after a perilous journey, in
gaining Havre by way of Bordeaux and Lyons; and after procuring the
necessary apparatus in England, he descended the Seine as far as
Poissy, which he reached on the 14th January 1871. After his
departure, two other scholars, MM. Desains and Bourbouze, relieving
each other day and night, waited at Paris, in a wherry on the Seine,
ready to receive the signal which they awaited with patriotic anxiety.
It was a question of working a process devised by the last-named pair,
in which the water of the river acted the part of the line wire. On
the 23rd January the communication at last seemed to be established,
but unfortunately, first the armistice and then the surrender of Paris
rendered useless the valuable result of this noble effort.

Special mention is also due to the experiments made by the Indian
Telegraph Office, under the direction of Mr Johnson and afterwards of
Mr W.F. Melhuish. They led, indeed, in 1889 to such satisfactory
results that a telegraph service, in which the line wire was replaced
by the earth, worked practically and regularly. Other attempts were
also made during the latter half of the nineteenth century to transmit
signals through the sea. They preceded the epoch when, thanks to
numerous physicists, among whom Lord Kelvin undoubtedly occupies a
preponderating position, we succeeded in sinking the first cable; but
they were not abandoned, even after that date, for they gave hopes of
a much more economical solution of the problem. Among the most
interesting are remembered those that S.W. Wilkins carried on for a
long time between France and England. Like Cooke and Wheatstone, he
thought of using as a receiver an apparatus which in some features
resembles the present receiver of the submarine telegraph. Later,
George E. Dering, then James Bowman and Lindsay, made on the same
lines trials which are worthy of being remembered.

But it is only in our own days that Sir William H. Preece at last
obtained for the first time really practical results. Sir William
himself effected and caused to be executed by his associates--he is
chief consul