Telegraph cable

“ The telegraph business of the United States is at present controlled by the Western Union and Postal Telegraph-Cable companies. The former in 1901 had 193,589 miles of poles and cable, 972,766 miles of wire, 23,238 offices, transmitted 65,657,049 messages, had receipts aggregating $26,354,151, expenses amounting to $19,668,903, and profits of $6,685,248. The average toll per message in 1870 was 75.5 cents, while the cost of transmission was 51.2 cents. ”

“ One can never be sure when the line may be unfit for duty. Sometimes from storms, sometimes from the assassination of the operators in wild districts through which the land wires pass, and sometimes from the destruction of lines out of pure mischief, the telegraph is often beaten by the mail.”
“There seems, indeed, much need for a cable direct,” said Sam, “which will make us independent of Turks, Persians, Arabs, and all the rest of them. By the way, how long is your cable?” ”

“ A twisted cable of telephone wire may, when each circuit is formed by diametrically opposite wires, be placed in the same tube with similar cables employed for telegraph purposes. The central wire of the cable may be used either as a telegraph line or as a telephone line having an earth return. Another method is to use powerful telephone transmitters and insensitive receivers ; that is to say, make the telephone currents so powerful that the telegraphic induced currents will be small in comparison, and use receivers so insensitive as to suit such currents. ”

“ The ordinary double current cable key with two levers, was arranged with an additional lever in such a manner that while in ordinary use in the telegraph office, it could also be put in circuit with the chronometer and chronograph in the observatory, and a signal sent through the cable would have its time of sending registered on the chronograph. Ordinarily in speaking over a cable line, connection is made in such a way that the current sent does not pass through the recorder at the sending station, as a violent movement of the siphon would result. ”

“ Already the cable companies have been affected considerably, and there is little doubt that they will feel the competition much more seriously before long. The general public, always conservative in such matters, have not yet grasped the fact that telegrams can be handed in at any telegraph office in the British Isles, and at most telegraph offices in the United States and Canada, for wireless transmission across the Atlantic, via the Marconi stations at Clifden and Glace Bay. ”

“ The admirable arrangements made at the Magnetic Telegraph office in Old Broad Street for connecting ten subterranean gutta-percha insulated conductors of over two hundred miles each, so as to give one continuous length of more than two thousand miles, during the hours of the night when the Telegraph is not commercially employed, furnished us the means of conclusively settling by actual experiment the question of the practicability as well as the practicality of telegraphing through our proposed Atlantic cable.... ”

“ The electric telegraph has become an essential and indispensable agent in the transmission of business and social messages. Its operation on land, and within the limit of particular states, is necessarily under the control of the jurisdiction within which it operates. The lines on the high seas, however, are not subject to the particular control of any one government.
In 1869 a concession was granted by the French Government to a company which proposed to lay a cable from the shores of France to the United States. ”

“ Thank God the cable has been successfully laid and is in perfect working order. I am sure that no one will be as thankful to God as you and our dear children. Now we shall be a united family. We leave in about a week to recover the cable of last year. Please telegraph at once and write in full, and I shall receive your letters on my return here.
“On the 15th inst. I received through the cable from Valentia your message from Newport and Grace’s telegram from Newburg, and on the 22d inst. your telegraphic despatch of the 10th inst., and this moment your letter of the 12th inst. ”

“ The shore ends of an ocean cable are made very large, as compared to the deep-sea portions, so as to resist the effect of the waves and other interfering obstacles. It was further learned that the most successful mode of transmitting signals through the cable was with a small battery of low voltage, and by the use of very delicate instruments for receiving the messages. It is not possible to employ such instruments on cables as are used on land-lines, while it would not be a difficult feat to transmit even twice the distance over land-lines strung on poles, using the ordinary Morse telegraph. ”

“ Thus the carrying capacity of the wire is in practice nearly doubled, and recorders are busy writing at both ends of the cable at once, as if the messages came up out of the sea itself.
We have thus far followed out the recorder in its practical application to submarine telegraphy. Let us now regard it for a moment in its more philosophic aspect. We are at once struck with its self-dependence as a machine, and even its resemblance in some respects to a living creature. All its activity depends on the galvanic current. ”

“ The Company being thus in working order, proceeded to make a contract for the manufacture of a cable to be laid across the Atlantic. For many months the proper form and size of the cable had been the subject of constant experiments. The conditions were: to combine the greatest degree of strength with lightness and flexibility. It must be strong, or it would snap in the process of laying. Yet it would not do to have it too large, for it would be unmanageable. Mr. Brett had already lost a cable in the Mediterranean chiefly from its bulk. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I feel that the toast which I have the honour to propose deserves a foremost place in the toasts of the day, and that you will heartily respond to it, namely, Success to the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company, for that Company has laid scores of cables since its formation, and has now successfully commenced, and will doubtless triumphantly complete, the laying of the cable which we have met to celebrate to-day—the fourth great enterprise, I may remark, which the Company has undertaken—the cable that is soon to connect India with England. ”

“ It is the story of great men—Morse, Thomson, Bell, Marconi, and others—and how, with the aid of men like Field, Vail, Catty, Pupin, the scientist, and others in both the technical and commercial fields, they succeeded in flashing both messages and speech around the world, with wires and without wires. It is the story of how the thought of the world has been linked together by those modern wonders of science and of industry—the telegraph, the submarine cable, the telephone, the wireless telegraph, and, most recently, the wireless telephone. ”

“ After passing through such elaborate tests, all will be glad to see the final product of so much care and skill. As the long line begins to reel off from the great wheels and drums, we may examine it in its completed and more perfect form. It is only necessary to compare it with the cable laid in 1858, to show its immense superiority. A glance at the two as they appear on the preceding page will show that the cable had grown since first it was planted in the ocean, as if it were a living product of the sea. This growth had been in every part, from core to circumference. ”

“ There can be no question but that, with a cable containing a single conducting wire, of a size not exceeding that through which we worked, and with equal insulation, it would be easy to telegraph from Ireland to Newfoundland at a speed of at least from eight to ten words per minute; nay, more: the varying rates of speed at which we worked, depending as they did upon differences in the arrangement of the apparatus employed, do of themselves prove that even a higher rate than this is attainable. ”

“ There has been in recent years a considerable shift of international telegraph traffic from cable to radio, a shift strongly accentuated in some countries, including Portugal and The Netherlands, where the overseas correspondent of American companies is a government-controlled monopoly which strongly advocates radio transmission. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The attempt to insulate more than one conducting-wire or medium would not only have increased the chances of failure of all of them, but would have necessitated the adoption of a proportionably heavier and more cumbrous cable. The tensile power of the outer or wire covering of the cable, being very much less than that of the conductor within it, the latter is protected from any such strain as can possibly rupture it or endanger its insulation without an entire fracture of the cable. ”

“ The most important aerial line erected by the firm was the Indo-European telegraph line, through Prussia, Russia, and Persia, to India. The North China cable, the Platino-Brazileira, and the Direct United States cable, were laid by the firm, the latter in 1874-5 So also was the French Atlantic cable, and the two Jay Could Atlantic cables. At the time of his death the manufacture and laying of the Bennett-Mackay Atlantic cables was in progress at the company's works, Charlton. Some idea of the extent of this manufactory may be gathered from the fact that it gives employment to some 2,000 men. ”

“ From Canso a cable is laid to Rockfort, about thirty miles south of Boston, Mass., a distance of 518 miles (16) , and another is laid to New York, 840 miles in length (15) . This company has direct communication with the Continent by means of a cable from Waterville to Havre of 510 miles (9) , and with England by a cable to Weston-super-Mare, near Bristol, of 328 miles (8) .
The Western Union Telegraph Company (the lessees of the lines of the American Telegraph and Cable Company) has two cables from Sennen Cove, Land's End, to Canso, Nova Scotia (4) . ”

“ The connecting of India with England direct by a deep-sea cable was a matter of the greatest importance, because the land telegraph which existed at the time was wretchedly worked, passing, as it did, through several countries, which involved translation and re-translation, besides subjecting messages to needless delay on the part of unbusiness-like peoples. ”

“ The design of the cable was a subject of experiment by Professor Morse and others. It was known that the conductor should be of copper, possessing a high conductivity for the electric current, and that its insulating jacket of gutta-percha should offer a great resistance to the leakage of the current. Moreover, experience had shown that the protecting sheath or armour of the core should be light and flexible as well as strong, in order to resist external violence and allow it to be lifted for repair. ”

“ Company. The new “Commercial” line was constructed and laid by Messrs. Siemens Brothers, and the “Anglo” cable by the Telegraph Construction Company. Fig. 43 shows the type adopted for the deepest water of the latter, and Fig. 44 that for the shore ends. Here the wires, besides being of a very large gauge, are applied with an extremely short lay (hence the elliptic appearance, though circular in reality) , in order to increase the weight of iron, and thereby avoid shifting and abrasion. This type is now in constant use where rocks, ice-floes, strong currents, or rough weather are experienced. ”

“ The electrostatic capacity of the line (see TELEGRAPH, p. 115 Capacity, above) is also diminished by the use of thin wires of highly con ducting material. They should all if possible be erected on poles at a considerable height above the earth. It is not practicable to work an ordinary underground line through more than 20 miles, and cable telephony through distances of over 100 miles may in the present state of science be put down as an impossibility. Another element of great importance in connexion with telephone 1 Sec papers by Prof. ”

“ At present wireless telegraphy has not superseded the ordinary methods of communicating over land, but there can be no doubt that wireless telegraphy, if free from Government restrictions, would in certain circumstances very quickly supersede land-line telegraphy, while it has proved a formidable commercial competitor to the cable as a means of connecting this country with America. ”