The British government has one hundred and three cables around our shores, of a total length of 1,489 miles.  If we include India and the colonies, the British empire owns altogether two hundred and sixteen cables of a total length of 3,811 miles.

The longest government cable in British waters is that from Sinclair Bay, Wick, to Sandwick Bay, Shetland, of the length of 122 miles, and laid in 1885.  The shortest being four cables across the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal, at the latter place, and each less than 300 ft. in length.

Of government cables the greatest number is owned by Norway, with two hundred and thirty-six, averaging, however, less than a mile each in length.

The greatest mileage is owned by the government of France with 3,269 miles, of the total length of fifty-one cables.

The next being British India with 1,714 miles, and eighty-nine cables; and Germany third with 1,570 miles and forty-three cables.

Britain being fourth with ninety miles less.  The oldest cable still in use is the one that was first laid, that namely from Dover to Calais.  It dates from 1851.

The two next oldest cables in use being those respectively from Ramsgate to Ostend, and St. Petersburg to Cronstadt, and both laid down in 1853.

Several unsuccessful attempts were made to connect England and Ireland by means of a cable between Holyhead and Howth; but communication between the two countries was finally effected in 1853, when a cable was successfully laid between Portpatrick and Donaghadee (31).

As showing one of the dangers to which cables laid in comparatively shallow waters are exposed, we may relate the curious accident that befell the Portpatrick cable in 1873.  During a severe storm in that year the Port Glasgow ship Marseilles capsized in the vicinity of Portpatrick, the anchor fell out and caught on to the telegraph cable, which, however, gave way.  The ship was afterward captured and towed into Rothesay Bay, in an inverted position, by a Greenock tug, when part of the cable was found entangled about the anchor.

The smallest private companies are the Indo-European Telegraph Company, with two cables in the Crimea, of a total length of fourteen and a half miles; and the River Plate Telegraph Company, with one cable from Montevideo to Buenos Ayres, thirty-two miles long.

The smallest government telegraph organization is that of New Caledonia, with its one solitary cable one mile long.

We will now proceed to give a few particulars regarding the companies having cables from Europe to America.

The most important company is the Anglo-American Telegraph Company, whose history is inseparably connected with that of the trials and struggles of the pioneers of cable laying.

Its history begins in 1851 when Tebets, an American, and Gisborne, an English engineer, formed the Electric Telegraph Company of Newfoundland, and laid down twelve miles of cable between Cape Breton and Nova Scotia.  This company was shortly afterward dissolved, and its property transferred to the Telegraphic Company of New York, Newfoundland and London, founded by Cyrus W. Field, and who in 1854 obtained an extension of the monopoly from the government to lay cables.