from humidity, the mouse-mill is or has been surrounded with burning carbon. At Malta a gas flame was used for the same purpose. At Suez, where they suffer from drought, a cloud of steam was kept rising round the instrument, saturating the air and paper. At more temperate places the ordinary means of drying the air by taking advantage of the absorbing power of sulphuric acid for moisture prevailed. At Marseilles the recorder acted in some respects like a barometer. Marseilles is subject to sudden incursions of dry northerly winds, termed the mistral. The recorder never failed to indicate the mistral when it blew, and sometimes even to predict it by many hours. Before the storm was itself felt, the delicate glass pen became agitated and disturbed, the frail blue line broken and irregular. The electrician knew that the mistral would blow before long, and, as it rarely blows for less than three days at a time, that rather rude wind, so dreaded by the Marseillaise, was doubly dreaded by him.
The recorder was first used experimentally at St. Pierre, on the French Atlantic cable, in 1869. This was numbered 0, as we were told by Mr. White of Glasgow, the maker, whose skill has contributed not a little to the success of the recorder. No. 1 was first used practically on the Falmouth and Gibraltar cable of the Eastern Telegraph Company in July, 1870. No. 1 was also exhibited at Mr. (now Sir John) Pender's telegraph soirée in 1870. On that occasion, memorable even beyond telegraphic circles, 'three hundred of the notabilities of rank and fashion gathered together at Mr. Pender's house in Arlington Street, Piccadilly, to celebrate the completion of submarine communication between London and Bombay by the successful laying of the Falmouth, Gibraltar and Malta and the British Indian cable lines.' Mr. Pender's house was literally turned outside in; the
