[GOLDSMID, COLONEL SIR JOHN FREDERIC]. Telegraph and Travel. A Narrative of the Formation and Development of Telegraphic Communication Between England and India, Under the Orders of Her Majesty's Government, With Incidental Notices of the Countries Traversed by the Lines. London: Macmillan & Co., 1874.
FIRST EDITION; leather bound, hardcover, octavo (23 x 15 cm), pp. [xiv], errata, map, 673, (appendix, index). English text. Contemporary tree calf signed by Morrell, five raised spine bands, compartments and bands gilt ruled, tooled and lettered, twin morocco lettering-pieces in second and third compartments, gilt ruled border to frame boards and edges, inner gilt dentelles, t.e.g., marbled pastedowns and endpapers, initial and terminal blanks plus half-title present, illustrated frontispiece showing the Masandam with telegraph station on Elphinstone Island, wood-engraved title-page oval vignette, 44 wood engravings, 1 steel engraved portrait of Colonel Patrick Stewart and 3 maps (2 of which are folding and coloured). Printed by R. Clay, Sons, and Taylor. Provenance: Bookplate to front pastedown belonging to Major General Sir Percy Zachariah Cox. Condition: FAIR. Front board fully detached with the textblock remaining intact, minor rubbing to extremities, the contents and largely very clean, small closed tear to fore-edge of half-title, front map has tears along the folds, previous owner signature to front blank.
Notes: Sir Frederic John Goldsmid was Chief Director of Government Indo-European Telegraph between 1865 and 1870. Fascinating and detailed account of the work on the submarine telegraph lines from British India to Turkish Arabia, the so-called "Persian Gulf Cable" laid in the 1860s and the technical and political difficulties encountered. An extensive section is devoted to the laying of cables in the Arabian Gulf south of Persia, with a separate diagram of the diversion of the "Persian Gulf Cable" from Elphinstone Island off the northern tip of Arabia to Henjam and Jask. The telegraph lines ultimately reached from London via Munich, Vienna, Constantinople, Diarbekr, and Baghdad to Basrah, then continued by the Indian Government to Bushehr, Henjam, Gwdar and Karachi as well as to Tehran. Other cables connected Cairo with Aden and thence with Bombay. Howgego III, G31. OCLC 1283945.
