A recent excellent book by Paul J. Nahin on Oliver Heaviside, a self-taught genius of the Victorian age, contains several nice examples of problem solving by the master. Two of these, concerning the flow of electricity along telegraph cables, are suitable for sixth formers and are described here. In passing it may also be mentioned that these cables, used first for telegraphic signals and later for voice signals, were a triumph of both the practical and theoretical skills of the nineteenth century, and were in use for world-wide communications for over a hundred years up to the nineteen seventies.