The line is worked by Morse instruments, usually direct from Chicago to Salt Lake, Hicks's self-acting repeaters being kept in the circuit at Omaha and Fort Laramie. At Salt Lake the messages are rewritten, and thence sent direct to San Francisco. The stations average about one for each fifty miles, and the whole length of the line is inspected twice a week by persons employed for the purpose. The cost of construction was about two hundred and fifty dollars per mile.
No trouble was experienced from Indian depredations until the last winter. Up to that time the line had worked almost uninterruptedly. Even during the Indian difficulties of the previous summer and autumn, which compelled the suspension of the overland mail, the telegraph was not in any manner molested by the savages. This was supposed to be owing in a great measure to the influence of superstitious fear among them in regard to the wire, which they supposed to be under the especial care of the Great Spirit; but it was probably largely due also to the many kind offices done them by the telegraph-operators, who frequently ascertained where the buffalo were in force, and informed their red-skinned neighbors, who were thus enabled to find their favorite game. The charm is now, however, unfortunately, dispelled; and the savages take every opportunity to break and carry off the wire and destroy the poles. Government is dispatching a large force of cavalry to punish the marauders and protect the line, which it is to be hoped may prove effectual.
It has already been mentioned that the Russian Government has undertaken to extend the main eastern and western line from Irkoutsk to the mouth of the Amoor River. This extension is now rapidly progressing. But this is only a single and not very prominent part of the work which the Emperor of Russia has begun. His design embraces nothing less than the following stupendous works, namely:—
A line, with the necessary submarine cables, from the mouth of the Amoor River, across the Straits of Tartary, over the island of Sakhalien, across the Straits of La Pérouse, over the Island of Jesso, through Hakodadi, and across the Straits of Sangar, to Jeddo, the capital of Japan.
A line from the confluence of the Usuri with the Amoor, seven hundred miles above the mouth of the latter, thence southward, on the bank of the Usuri, to Lake Kingka, and thence to the port of Vladi Vastok, on the coast of Tartary, opposite the port of Hakodadi, on the eastern coast of the Japanese Sea. Vladi Vastok is selected by the Emperor for his naval station on the Pacific coast.
A line from Irkoutsk, the capital of Eastern Siberia, through Kiakhta, now the entrepôt of European and Chinese overland commerce, through the vast territory of the Mongols, to the gate in the Chinese wall at Yahol, and thence to Pekin, the capital of the Chinese Empire.[E]
A line from a station on the main continental line at Omsk, near the southern boundary of Asiatic Russia, passing through Mongolia, and entering China at Hirck, sometimes called Illy, thence crossing Turkistan, Bokhara, and Balk, to Cabool, in Afghanistan, thence to capital places in the Punjaub, where it will meet the telegraphic system of India, and thus become a medium of communication between London and the colonial dependencies of Great Britain, Holland, Spain, and Portugal, on the shores and islands of the great Indian Ocean.
A line from Kasan, on the main central Russian line, through Georgia and Circassia, along the western shore of the Caspian Sea, to Teheran, the capital of Persia, thence to the Tigris, at Bagdad, thence descending along the banks of that river to the head of the Persian Gulf, there to be connected with the Oriental telegraph system of India.
The line from Irkoutsk to Pekin American citizens residing in China are now soliciting, with good prospect of success, permission from the Chinese Government to extend through the Empire, with the needful branches, connecting the principal ports along the Pacific coast, opposite California. A company to carry out this project has been organized under the laws of the State of New York. The wires of this company are first to be put up from Canton to Macao and Hong Kong, a distance of 140 miles,—Canton having a population of 1,000,000, Hong-Kong of 40,000, and the trade of both cities world-famous. Lying 245 miles north is Amoy, with 250,000 inhabitants; and 120 miles farther in the same direction is Foochow, a city with a population of 600,000, and within 70 miles of the black-tea districts, with large commerce, and with numerous manufactures of great value. Beyond it 250 miles is Ningpo, with 300,000 inhabitants, and thriving manufactures of silks. Eighty miles north is Shanghai, a city of not less than 200,000 inhabitants, and possessing a larger inland or native trade than any other in China. Yet between these great marts there is no telegraphic communication whatever,—nor, indeed, is there a line in any part of the whole Chinese Empire. The company proposes, therefore, to connect these great commercial cities, and, having done that, to carry on its line to Nankin, with its 400,000 inhabitants, and thence to Pekin, which has a population of 2,000,000, and is the capital of an empire spread over an area of 5,000,000 square miles, and containing more than 420,000,000 souls, who pay to the Government an annual revenue of $120,000,000. It may well be understood, that, for Government purposes alone, a line of telegraph thus extending between the chief cities of China will prove of incalculable value, alike in its use, and in its profits to those who erect it and receive its income. The enterprise is a great one, but its reward will be great. Its successful accomplishment seems to be well assured; and New York may expect presently to claim the honor of first giving to the oldest of existing empires the beneficent invention which the newest of nations created, and at the same time of taking the final step for the completion of the one great line which is to put all the countries of the earth in instant communication.