for at least a falling off of the charge to a point indicated by the
receiving instrument as zero.

In the construction of the line care was taken to insure the _lowest
possible resistance_ through the circuit, even to the furnishing of the
river cables with conductors weighing 500 lb. per mile.

Ground wires were placed on every tenth pole.

When the first 100 miles of wire had been strung, I was much encouraged
to find that we could telegraph without any difficulty past the average
provincial "ground," provided the terminal grounds were good.

When the western end of this remarkable wire reached Olean, N.Y., 400
miles from New York, my assistant, Mr. S.K. Dingle, proceeded to that
town with a receiving instrument, and we made the first test.

I found that 800 words, or 20,000 impulses, per minute, could be
transmitted in Morse characters over that circuit _without compensation_
for static.

In other words, the old Bain method was competent to telegraph 800 words
per minute on the 400 miles of 1.5 ohm wire.

The trouble began, however, when the wire reached Cleveland, O., about
700 miles from New York.

Upon making a test at Cleveland, I found the signals made a continuous
black line upon the chemical paper. I then placed both ends of the wire
to earth through 3,000 ohms resistance, and introduced a small auxiliary