There were now two fibres of
intelligence between the two hemispheres.
On his return home, Professor Thomson was among those who received the
honour of knighthood for their services in connection with the
enterprise. He deserved it. By his theory and apparatus he probably
did more than any other man, with the exception of Mr. Field, to further
the Atlantic telegraph. We owe it to his admirable inventions, the
mirror instrument of 1857 and the siphon recorder of 1869, that messages
through long cables are so cheap and fast, and, as a consequence, that
ocean telegraphy is now so common. Hence some account of these two
instruments will not be out of place.
Sir William Thomson's siphon recorder, in all its present completeness,
must take rank as a masterpiece of invention. As used in the recording
or writing in permanent characters of the messages sent through long
submarine cables, it is the acknowledged chief of 'receiving
instruments,' as those apparatus are called which interpret the
electrical condition of the telegraph wire into intelligible signals.
Like other mechanical creations, no doubt its growth in idea and
translation into material fact was a step-by-step process of evolution,
culminating at last in its great fitness and beauty.
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