An important paper of thirty quarto pages published in the
'Transactions of the Royal Society' for June 19, 1862, under the
title 'Experimental Researches on the Transmission of Electric
Signals through submarine cables, Part I. Laws of Transmission
through various lengths of one cable, by Fleeming Jenkin, Esq.,
communicated by C. Wheatstone, Esq., F.R.S.,' contains an account
of a large part of Jenkin's experimental work in the Birkenhead
factory during the years 1859 and 1860. This paper is called Part
I. Part II. alas never appeared, but something that it would have
included we can see from the following ominous statement which I
find near the end of Part I.: 'From this value, the
electrostatical capacity per unit of length and the specific
inductive capacity of the dielectric, could be determined. These
points will, however, be more fully treated of in the second part
of this paper.' Jenkin had in fact made a determination at
Birkenhead of the specific inductive capacity of gutta-percha, or
of the gutta-percha and Chatterton's compound constituting the
insulation of the cable, on which he experimented.
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