ried, "Why, Miss Darry, this evening has proved
to me that I could not sustain myself in any untried position without
some help from you."

She smiled, saying I was ridiculously unconscious of my own ability, and
yet looking gratified, I fancied, at the confession.

(_To be continued._)

THE PROGRESS OF THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.

In the spring of 1860 an article was published in this magazine with the
above title, giving an account of the extension of the telegraph up to
that time. Its progress since has been very great in every quarter of
the globe. Upon this continent the electric wire extends from the Gulf
of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic to the
Pacific Ocean, connecting upwards of six thousand cities and villages;
while upon the Eastern Continent unbroken telegraphic communication
exists from London to all parts of Europe,--to Tripoli and Algiers, in
Africa,--Cairo, in Egypt,--Teheran, in Persia,--Jerusalem, in
Syria,--Bagdad and Nineveh, in Asiatic Turkey,--Bombay, Calcutta, and
other important cities, in India,--Irkoutsk, the capital of Eastern
Siberia,--and to Kiakhta, on the borders of China.

But however rapid the extension of the telegraph has been in the past,
it is destined to show still greater advancement in the future. Neither
the American nor the European system has yet attained to its ultimate
development. Transient wars now delay the establishment of lines in San
Juan, Panama, Quito, Lima, Valparaiso, Buenos Ayres, Montevideo, Rio
Janeiro, Surinam, Caraccas, and Mexico, and the incorporating of them,
with all their local ramifications, into one American telegraph system.
The Atlantic cable, although its recent attempted submergence has proved
a failure, will yet be successfully laid; while the equally important
enterprise of establishing overland telegraphic communication with
Europe _via_ the Pacific coast and the Amoor River is now being
vigorously pushed forward towards its successful completion.

The latter project, which is being carried out by the Western Union
Extension Telegraph Company, with a capital of ten million dollars,
embraces the construction of a line of telegraph from New Westminster,
British Columbia, the northern terminus of the California State
Telegraph Company, through British Columbia and Russian America to Cape
Prince of Wales, and thence across Behring's Strait to East Cape; or, if
found more practicable, from Cape Romanzoff to St. Lawr