Transatlantic cable

“ The cable that we had the honor to contract for and lay down for the French Government, connecting France with Algeria, is submerged in water of nearly equal depths to any we should have to encounter between Ireland and Newfoundland.
"You will permit us to suggest that the shore ends of the Atlantic Cable should be composed of very heavy wires, as from our experience the only accidents that have arisen to any of the cables that we have laid have been caused by ships' anchors, and none of those laid out of anchorage ground have ever cost one shilling for repairs. ”

“ It is impossible for any human foresight to estimate or predict even the results of such a communication, and we trust that the Governments of the United States and Great Britain will take up the matter of an oceanic line on a scale commensurate with its importance, providing such a number of distinct wires enclosed in one cable as will supply the necessities of commerce and intercourse between Europe and America. ”

“ At the present time, the ten Atlantic cables now convey about ten thousand messages daily between the two continents. The losses attending the laying of the 1865 cable resulted in the financial ruin of the Atlantic company and its amalgamation with the Anglo-American. In 1866 the Great Eastern successfully laid the first cable for the new company, and with the assistance of other vessels succeeded in picking up the broken end of the 1865 cable and completing its connection with Newfoundland. ”

“ In reply to your inquiries, we beg to state that we should not be willing to manufacture and lay a Submarine Telegraph Cable across the Atlantic, from Ireland to Newfoundland, assuming the entire risk, as we consider that would be too great a responsibility for any single firm to undertake; but we are so confident that these points can be connected by a good and durable cable, that we are willing to contract to do the work, and stake a large sum upon its successful laying and working. ”

“ This was, of course, before the days of cutting and holding grapnels as we now have them, which render it{199} possible for a single ship to effect repairs—even where it is out of the question to recover the cable in one bight.
Fig. 40.—S.S. Great Eastern Completing the Second Atlantic Cable.
Setting to Work: Repeated Failures.—When the Great Eastern arrived on the grappling ground, the Albany (with Mr. Temple in engineering charge) had already hooked and buoyed the cable, but the buoy-chain having been carried away, they not only lost the cable, but 2,000 fathoms of wire rope besides. ”

“ The electricians, however, made much of the importance of being in continuous communication with shore during laying operations; and this view appealed to the Board—partly, no doubt, on account of the novelty of being able from headquarters to speak to a ship as she proceeded across the Atlantic. It had, therefore, been arranged for the laying of the cable to be started by the Niagara from the Irish coast, the Agamemnon laying the remaining half from mid-ocean. ”

“ Countries far apart, and isolated by oceans, have, by means of deep-sea cables, been brought into intimate relation, and made sharers of one another’s intelligence, enterprise, and civilizing instincts. What the overland telegraph has done toward bringing local states and communities into contact, the submarine cable has done for the remote nations.
In form, an ocean cable differs much from the simple wire which constitutes the conductor of an overland or even underground telegraph. ”

“ The result of this is nowadays to practically double the carrying capacity and earning power of the line, the effective speed in either direction remaining virtually the same as in “simplex” working, provided the cable is in good condition. [73] The armor of this cable (Fig. 43) is also a good example of present-day practise, each wire (usually covered with compounded tape) butting against the next; this is found to be the most durable form for a deep-sea cable.
In 1898 another French Atlantic line of a similar type to the above was laid. ”

“ The science of making, testing, and laying cables has so much improved that an undetected fault in an insulated wire has now become literally impossible, while so much are the instruments for signalling improved, that not only can a slight fault be disregarded if necessary, but it is even easy to work through a submarine wire with a foot of its copper conductor stripped and bare to the water. This latter result, astonishing as it may appear, has actually been achieved for some days past with the whole Atlantic cable on board the Great Eastern. ”

“ Neither the American nor the European system has yet attained to its ultimate development. Transient wars now delay the establishment of lines in San Juan, Panama, Quito, Lima, Valparaiso, Buenos Ayres, Montevideo, Rio Janeiro, Surinam, Caraccas, and Mexico, and the incorporating of them, with all their local ramifications, into one American telegraph system. The Atlantic cable, although its recent attempted submergence has proved a failure, will yet be successfully laid ”

“ There was a strange, unnatural silence in the ship. Men paced the deck with soft and muffled{66} tread, speaking only in whispers, as if a loud or heavy footfall might snap the vital cord. So much had they grown to feel for the enterprise, that the cable seemed to them like a human creature, on whose fate they themselves hung, as if it were to decide their own destiny.
“There are some who will never forget that first night at sea. Perhaps the reaction from the excitement on shore made the impression the deeper. There are moments in life when everything comes back to us. ”

“ When we consider the extraordinary undertaking that has been accomplished within the last few weeks; when we consider that a cable of about 2,000 miles has been extended beneath the ocean—a length which, if multiplied ten times, would reach our farthest colonies and nearly surround the earth; when we consider it is stretched along the bed of shingles and shells, which appeared destined for it as a foundation by Providence, and stretching from the points which human enterprise would look to ”

“ But these increased facilities and this additional security, together with the control of the combined capital of the two companies, gave also greater power to prevent the future construction of other lines and to limit the control of telegraphic communication between the two continents to those possessing the lines already laid. Within a few months past a cable has been laid, known as the United States Direct Cable Company, connecting the United States directly with Great Britain. ”

“ The influence of the cable upon commerce has been so great as to revolutionize the methods of international trade that prevailed a century ago; indeed, ocean telegraphy has made it no more difficult to effect international sales and purchases than it is to make domestic exchanges. With thirteen cables in successful operation between the United States and Europe, we have had no difficulty in building up an immense trade across the Atlantic; but, with no trans-Pacific line, we are experiencing much difficulty in securing a large place in the trade of the Orient. ”

“ The ship seemed as if made by Heaven to accomplish this great work of civilization. The paying-out apparatus was a piece of mechanism to excite the enthusiasm of an engineer, so smoothly did its well-oiled wheels run. The strain never exceeded fourteen hundred-weight, even in the greatest depths of the Atlantic. And as for the cable itself, it seemed to come as near perfection as it was possible to attain. As before, the insulation was greatly improved by submergence in the ocean. With every lengthening league it grew better and better. ”

“ On September 8th, when only thirteen miles from the Bay of Heart’s Content, just after receiving a summary of the news in The Times of that morning, the tests showed a fault in the cable. The mischief was soon found to be on board the ship, and caused by the end of a broken wire, which, bending at right angles under the weight of the men employed in the tanks, had been forced into the core. ”

“ 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 consists of an exchange of currents sent alternately every ten minutes by each ship. These not only serve to give an accurate test of the continuity and insulation of the conducting-wire from end to end, but also to give certain signals which it is desirable to send for information purposes. For instance, every ten miles{121} of cable paid out is signalized from ship to ship, as also the approach to land or momentary stoppage for splicing, shifting to a fresh coil, etc. The current in its passage is made to pass through an electromagnetometer, [34] an instrument invented by Mr. Whitehouse. ”

“ Owing to the small currents received and to prevent interference from earth currents it is necessary to use a complete metallic circuit. If an overhead line could be employed no difficulty would be experienced in working a distance of over 1000 miles, but a line of this length is impossible—at least in this country—and if transmission is attempted with any other country, a certain amount of submarine cable is essential. ”

“ The proprietors of the Marine Telegraph between England and France propose, instead of laying a wire like the one which the storm broke recently, to have new wires inclosed in ropes of four or five inches in diameter—the first layer being made of gutta percha, and the outer one of iron wire, all chemically prepared to resist the action of water and the attacks of marine animalculæ. In each cable there will be four lines of communication, and two cables will be laid down at a distance of three miles apart, to provide for any accident that may happen to one of them. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The “Commercial” Company was mainly promoted by two American millionaires, Mr. J. W. Mackay, the celebrated New York financier, and Mr. Gordon Bennett, the proprietor of the New York Herald; with them were associated Messrs. Siemens Brothers, who afterward became the contractors for the enterprise. These cables, like the Jay Gould lines, stretch from the extreme southwest point of Ireland (which is connected by special cable with England) to Nova Scotia, and thence to the United States, one of them direct to New York. ”

“ Beside this, another Atlantic cable, connecting France with the American Continent, has been laid successfully and has worked without interruption. From England fifteen submarine wires, laid across the beds of the Channel or the North Sea, connect that country with France, Belgium and Holland. Sweden and Norway are connected with Germany by marine cables across the Baltic, while Sicily and Sardinia are connected with Italy by a cable in the bottom of the Mediterranean. ”

“ As a result of considerable discussion, the two governments concerned eventually came to recognize the importance and feasibility of this undertaking for linking together the two great English-speaking nations, and the benefits it would confer upon humanity. Both the British and United States Governments gave a subsidy, in return for free transmission of their messages, with priority over others. [11] This, however, only{40} jointly amounted to 8 per cent of the capital, and was payable only while the cable worked. ”

“ The flags of the ship were put at half-mast, and the fleet returned to Valentia.
This expedition had cost the Atlantic Telegraph Company $500,000, and on August 25th Robert Stephenson wrote: “The Atlantic cable question is a far more difficult matter than those who have undertaken it are disposed to believe. The subject has occupied much of my thoughts, and as yet I must confess I do not see my way through it. Before the ships left this country with the cable I publicly predicted as soon as they got into deep water a signal failure. It was in fact inevitable.” ”

“ As an instance, even at a comparatively recent period, Captain Marryat, R.N., the famous nautical author, writes of the sea: “What a mine of wealth must lie buried in its sands. What riches lie entangled among its rocks, or remain suspended in its unfathomable gulf, where the compressed fluid is equal in gravity to that which it encircles.” [13]
To obviate this non-existent difficulty, it was gravely proposed to festoon the cable across, at a given maximum depth between buoys and{45} floats, or even parachutes—at which ships might call, hook on, and talk telegraphically to shore! ”