p and pass into it a slender wire, when lo! there comes to it
a spark from air and water, from the cloud and the solid earth, which
the highest mountains cannot stop, nor the deepest seas drown, as it
dashes on its fiery way, indifferent whether its errand be to the next
village or to the antipodes. No other voice can speak to the far and
near at the same time. No other hand can write a message which may be
delivered within the same hour at Quebec and at Moscow. By no other
means may you converse at once with the farmer of Illinois and the
merchant of Amsterdam, with the German on the Danube and the Arab under
his palm.

To the use of such an instrument there can be no limit but the desire of
man to converse with man. If from this populous and opulent capital you
would speak with any inhabitant of either hemisphere, you have here an
agent which may be brought to do your bidding. If any, however distant,
desire to speak with us, they have these means at their command. How
great will be the effect of all this upon the civilization of the human
race, I do not pretend to foresee. But this I foresee, as all men may,
that the necessities of governments, the thirst for knowledge, and the
restless activity of commerce will make the telegraph girdle the earth
and bind it in a network of electric wire.

The Atlantic, the most dangerous and difficult of all the seas, has been
crossed. In the Pacific you may pass easily from island to island, till
you reach the shores of Eastern Asia. There an American company will
take it up and extend it from side to side of the central Flowery Land.
And an English company is about to cross the straits which divide
Australia from the elder continent. Indeed, I think that I declare not
only what is possible but what will come to pass within the next decade,
that there will be a telegraph-office wherever there is now a
post-office, and that messages by the telegraph will pass almost as
frequently as messages by the mail.

Then the different races and nations of men will stand, as it were in
the presence of one another. They will know one another better. They
will act and react upon one another. They may be moved by common
sympathies and swayed by common interests. Thus the electric spark is
the true Promethean fire, which is to kindle human hearts. Then will men
learn that they are brethren, and that it is not less their interest
than their duty to cultivate good-will and peace throughout all the