Step 1 : Introduction to the question "2. From the time that the working telegraph had commenced operation in England in the late 1830s, mankind began to toy with the idea of eventually linking up countries separated by oceans as well. How was this to be achieved?"
...1. Wire strung from permanently anchored ships 2. Wires linking up various islands 3. Wire strung from buoy to buoy 4. Undersea cables laid on ocean beds Samuel Morse first demonstrated that this could be a distinct possibility, when, in 1842, he sent a message from one side of New York harbour to the other. To do this he insulated the wire with tarred hemp and Indian rubber. Charles Wheatstone, back in England, completed a similar experiment across Swansea Bay the following year. Wire insulated by the adhesive substance obtained from the gutta-percha tree in Asia was then successfully demonstrated by a Scottish surgeon. He had seen this product when he worked overseas and thought the substance would be excellent in the use of surgical instruments. By 1850, trials were held using this excellent new product on underwater lines between Dover and Calais, and then between two towns separated by the Rhine river in Germany. Gutta-percha was not replaced as insulating material for underwater cables until 1930 - with the invention of polyethylene.
