Sir Charles Bright

“ It really appeared as if the last hour of the stout ship had come, and to this minute it seems almost miraculous that her masts held on. Each time she fell over her main chains went deep under water. The lower decks were flooded, and those above could hear by the fearful crashing—audible amid the hoarse roar of the storm—that the coals had got loose again below, and had broken into the engine-room, and were carrying all before them. During these rolls the main-deck coil shifted over to such a degree as quite to envelop four men, who, sitting on the top, were trying to wedge it down with beams. ”

“ Nearly all the officers of the ship and of those connected with the expedition stood in groups about the coil, watching with intense anxiety the cable as it slowly unwound itself nearer and nearer the joint, while the workmen worked at the splice as only men could work who felt that the life and death of the expedition depended upon their rapidity. But all their speed was to no purpose, as the cable was unwinding within a hundred fathoms ”

“ Those who had leisure for sleep were able to dream about cable-laying and the terrible effects of too great a strain. The first question which such as these ask on awakening is about the cable, and on being informed that it is all right, satisfaction ensues until the appearance of breakfast, when it is presumed this feeling is intensified. For those who do not derive any particular pleasure from the mere asking of questions, the harmonious music made by the paying-out machine during its revolutions supplies the information. ”

“ About three o’clock on Tuesday morning all on board were startled from their beds by the loud booming of a gun. Every one—without waiting for the performance of the most particular toilet—rushed on deck to ascertain the cause of the disturbance. Contrary to all expectation, the cable was safe; but just in the gray light could be seen the Valorous—rounded to in the most warlike attitude—firing gun after gun in quick succession toward a large American bark, which, quite unconscious of our proceedings, was standing right across our stern. ”

“ That of all the many mishaps connected with the Atlantic telegraph, this was the worst and most disheartening, since it proved that after all that human skill and science can effect to lay the wire down with safety has been accomplished, there may be some fatal obstacles to success at the bottom of the ocean which can never be guarded against, for even the nature of the peril must always remain as secret and unknown as the depths in which it is to be encountered. ”

“ Later in the day a heavy sea got on; the wind increased without dissipating the fog, and it was double-reefed topsails and pitching and rolling as before. However, the upper-deck coil of 250 tons being gone, the Agamemnon was as buoyant as a lifeboat, and no one cared how much she took to kicking about, though the cold wet fog was a miserable nuisance, penetrating everywhere and making the ship as wet inside as out. What made the matter worse was that in such weather there seemed no chance of meeting the Niagara unless she ran into us, when cable-laying would have gone on wholesale. ”

“ The first Atlantic cable gave me the happiness and privilege of meeting and working with the late Sir Charles Bright. He was the engineer of this great undertaking—full of vigor, full of enthusiasm. We were shipmates on the Agamemnon on the ever-memorable expedition of 1858, during which we were out of sight of land for thirty-three days. To Sir C. Bright’s vigor, earnestness, and enthusiasm was due the successful laying of the cable. ”

“ Indeed, it may be truly said that the harnessing of this force of nature (electricity) to the service of man for human intercourse has effected a change in political, commercial, and social relations, even more complete than that wrought by steam locomotion. Like its fellow emblems, the telegraph was the outcome of many years of persevering effort on the part of numerous scientific investigators and inventors; like them also, it was perfected for practical use on both sides of the Atlantic by men of our own race{14} and speech, such as Cooke, Wheatstone, and Morse. ”

“ Naturally the pressure increases with the depth on all sides of a cable (or anything else) in its descent through the sea, but, as practically everything on earth is more compressible than water, it is obvious that the iron wire, yarn, gutta-percha, and copper conductor, forming the cable, must be more and more compressed as they descend. Thus the cable constantly increases its density, or specific gravity, in going down, while the equal bulk of the water surrounding it continues to have, practically speaking, very nearly the same specific gravity as at the surface. ”

“ Every one seemed impressed with the conviction that we were engaged in a hopeless enterprise; and the squadron seemed rather to have slunk away on some discreditable mission than to have sailed for the accomplishment of a grand national scheme. It was just dawn when the Agamemnon got clear of Queenstown harbor, but, as the wind blew stiff from the southwest, it was nearly ten o’clock before she rounded the Old Head of Kinsale, a distance of only a few miles. ”

“ Brown, the chief engineer, as ultrazealous in the cause as a board of directors, guarded the coal-bunkers like a very dragon, lest, if in coming to paying out the cable again, steam should run short, thereby endangering the success of the whole undertaking.
For the fifth time, therefore, the Agamemnon’s head went about, and after twenty days at sea she again began beating up against the wind for the rendezvous to try, if possible, to recommence her labors. ”

“ The sea, too, kept striking with dull, heavy violence against the vessel’s bows, forcing its way through hawse-holes and ill-closed ports with a heavy slush; and thence, hissing and winding aft, it roused the occupants of the cabins aforesaid to a knowledge that their floors were under water, and that the flotsam and jetsam noises they heard beneath were only caused by their outfit for the voyage taking a cruise of its own in some five or six inches of dirty bilge. Such was Sunday night, and such was a fair average of all the nights throughout the week, varying only from bad to worse. ”

“ Bright, having landed the end of the Atlantic cable at Valentia, has brought to a successful termination his anxious and difficult task of linking the Old World with the New, thereby annihilating space. Since the discovery of Columbus, nothing has been done in any degree comparable to the vast enlargement which has thus been given to the sphere of human activity. ”

“ The Great Eastern now proceeded six miles to the eastward, and commenced a new drag, for raking the ocean bed with 2,400 fathoms of wire rope. About eleven o’clock at night the grapnel came to the surface with the cable caught on two of the prongs. Boats were quickly in position alongside the grapnel. Shortly afterward they were endeavoring to secure the cable to the strong wire rope, by means of a nipper, when the grapnel canted, allowing the line to slip away from the prongs—like a great eel—and disappear into the sea. ”

“ It has been proved beyond a doubt that no obstacle exists to prevent our ultimate success; and I see clearly how every difficulty which has presented itself in this voyage can be effectually dealt with in the next.
The cable has been laid at the expected rate in the great depths; its electric working through the entire length has been satisfactorily accomplished, while the portion laid, actually improved in efficiency by being submerged—from the low temperature of the water and the increased close texture of gutta-percha thereby effected. ”

“ At this hour flags were flying from all the public buildings, and the bells of the principal churches began to ring, as Christmas bells signal the birthday of One who came to bring peace and good-will to men—chimes that, it was fondly hoped, might usher in, as they should, a new era. ”

“ The testing-room is where the subtle current which flows along the conductor is generated, and where the mysterious apparatus by which electricity is weighed and measured—as a marketable commodity—is fitted up. The system of testing and of transmitting and receiving signals through the cable from ship to ship during the process of paying out must now be briefly referred to. ”

“ The similarity, in principle, of a cable to a Leyden jar was first pointed out by Mr. Edward Brailsford Bright in the course of a paper read before the British Association{31} in 1854. He showed that on charging a gutta-percha-covered wire, the insulating material tended to absorb and retain a part of the charge and to hold back, as a static charge, some of the electricity flowing as current through the conductor—just as the charge (of opposite potential) induced on the outside plate of a Leyden jar statically holds the primary charge on the inner plate, until either are neutralized. ”

“ Other submarine attempts followed: the telegraph paused before the great Atlantic, like another Alexander, weeping as if it had no more worlds to conquer; but it has found another world, and it has gained it—not bringing strife or conquest, but carrying with it peace and good-will. (Applause.) I feel I should be wanting if I did not allude in terms of admiration{143} to the genius and skill of the engineer, Sir Charles Bright, who has carried out this enterprise, and to the zeal and courage of those who brought it to a successful termination. ”

“ Mechanically speaking, the structure of the cable has answered every expectation that I had formed of it. Its weight in water is so adjusted to the depth that strain is within a manageable scope; while the effects of the undercurrents upon its surface prove how dangerous it would be to lay a much lighter rope, which would, by the greater time occupied in sinking, expose an increased surface to their power, besides its descent being at an angle such as would not provide for good laying at the bottom. ”

“ Ships and Paying-out Machinery.—The race against time—resulting from an unfortunate arrangement with American interests—was truly appalling; for, besides the manufacture of the line itself, ships had to be selected and prepared for receiving the cable, and machinery for paying out the line had to be designed and made. So far as the manufacture went, the machinery for that was already in existence, in view of the cables that had previously been laid—apart from the fact that the sheathing machinery was practically the same as had already been used for making ropes with. ”

“ From the electrician’s point of view, these subdivisions were extremely favorable as compared with the long continuous length entailed by an Atlantic cable between Ireland and Newfoundland. Then, again, the soundings (except for a section between Greenland and Labrador) did not yield anything approaching the more southern depths. But against these obvious advantages there was the engineering objection—which at first seemed insurmountable—that the Greenland coast was bound up by ice for a great part of the year, in addition to the risk of injury to the cable from the grounding of icebergs. ”

“ Bright,” dwelt with much eloquence on the achievements of science, and paid a marked and merited compliment to the genius and perseverance which, in the face of discouragement from the scientific world, had succeeded in bringing about the accomplishment of the great undertaking of the laying of the Atlantic telegraph. ”

“ Bright and the two energetic engineers, Mr. Canning and Mr. Clifford, who acted with him, it could not have been done at all. Men were kept at the wheels of the machine to prevent their stopping (as the stern of the ship rose and fell with the sea) , for had they done so, the cable must undoubtedly have parted. During Sunday the sea and wind increased, and before the evening it blew a smart gale. ”

“ S. F. B. Morse, the well-known inventor of the telegraph apparatus bearing his name, also made a study of this problem in 1842, when he laid down an insulated copper wire across New York harbor, through which he transmitted electric currents. Hemp soaked in tar and pitch, surrounded with a layer of india-rubber, constituted the insulation. Morse was a great letter-writer, and records of his early work are solely based on his own statements at a time when he noted in his diary: “I am crushed for want of means. My stockings all want to see my mother, and my hat is hoary with age.” ”

“ He had been from the outset an ardent believer in the Atlantic line. His acquisition as a director was destined to prove of vast importance in influencing the development of transoceanic communication, for his subsequent experiments on the cable during 1857-’58 led up to his invention of the mirror galvanometer and signaling instrument, whereby{43} the most attenuated currents of electricity, which are incapable of producing visible signals on other telegraphic apparatus, are so magnified by the use of a reflected beam of light as to afford signals readily legible. ”

“ The rest of the squadron were in sight at nightfall, but at such a considerable distance that it was past ten o’clock on the morning of Thursday the 29th, before the Agamemnon joined them. Some time previous to reaching the rendezvous the engineer-in-chief (Mr. Bright) went up in the shrouds on the lookout for the other ships, and accordingly had to “pay his footing”—much to the amusement of his staff. Most of them being more advanced in years would not probably have been so equal to the task in an athletic sense. ”