Page:Once a Week Volume V.djvu/631

 624 the exception rather than the rule to lay them successfully. Out of the 8000 and odd miles which are now the exclusive possession of coral insects, zoophytes, and other sea creatures, no less than 6949 miles belong to four undertakings—viz., the Atlantic, 2200 miles; the Red Sea and Indian, 3499 miles; the Sardinia, Malta, and Corfu, 700 miles; and the Singapore and Batavia, 550 miles. The ordinary obstacles to the laying of a cable in a deep ocean are, without doubt, very great. In the first place, the “paying out” process, as at present conducted, is barbarous in the extreme. In but too many cases steam vessels have to be employed, which are utterly unfitted for stowing away the cable. When great lengths have to be laid, the coils are of such magnitude that they cannot be stowed away in one part of a ship’s hold, and consequently in the midst of “paying out,” the manipulators have to shift from one part of the ship to another. Then, again, a storm suddenly arises, and the cable hanging over the stern is liable to constant and severe jerks and strains, as the ship pitches in a broken sea. Whilst paying out a cable a vessel must steam right ahead, and has no power to accommodate herself by meeting a sea. Hence she is subjected to greater motion than an ordinary vessel. Again, the difficulty of taking soundings at a depth of two or three miles is so great that it is not to be wondered at that cables are now and then laid on ocean beds which are sure to destroy them almost as soon as deposited. When to these natural impementsimpediments [sic] to success we add those created by carelessness, or worse; when we find that, in the language of telegraphy, cables are “starved,” or made so slight, in order to save expense, and that they are known to be failures before they have ever seen salt-water, we cease to wonder that innocent shareholders within these last ten years have cast upwards of two millions of money hopelessly into the sea.

The two great failures which have occurred have destroyed for a time public faith in Ocean Telegraphs. Our deep-sea cables were known from the first to have been far too slim and weak to sustain the spark intact during the long journey it had to make. It was jestingly said that putting down an inch and five-eighths cable to cross the Atlantic was like entering a pony for the Derby, and that the Red Sea line (less than an inch in diameter) was as inadequate for its work as a donkey would be to run for the St. Leger.

The history of the Atlantic cable is “a caution,” to use an American phrase, to the speculating public. Considering that it was the longest cable that possibly we shall ever see in one length, (2500 miles), and destined to traverse an Ocean whose sounding is measured by miles, the reckless manner in which every step of its progress was conducted is something marvellous. The very seeds of its destruction appeared at its birth. The company having undertaken that it should be laid in 1857, on pain of losing their concession, and having but little time to carry out their engagement, it was determined that the construction of the cable should be divided between the two great manufacturers—one half being given to Messrs. Glass, Elliot, and Co., and the other to Messrs. Newall. No standard for the conductivity of the copper wire was laid down, and nearly the whole of the cable was furnished before this very necessary preliminary was settled: the consequence was, that different parts of the cable tested very differently. A more fundamental error, however, arose in the course of the construction of the portion manufactured by Messrs. Glass and Eliot. It will be remembered that the month of June, 1857, was almost tropical in heat, and unfortunately the cable, when manufactured, was coiled in a tank open to the sun; the consequence was, that the gutta-percha covering, which formed the water-tight envelope to the wire, became so soft that it allowed the conductor to get out of the centre; in some cases it actually sunk through the gutta-percha, and was visible at the under side. Wherever this was the case, the piece was cut out; but it was not contended, even by the manufacturers, that all defects were removed by this process. The invaluable process of testing the cable under hydraulic pressure, as it was manufactured, was not adopted, and consequently the exact value of its conducting power was not ascertained; indeed, throughout the whole transaction there was an evident disinclination to allow science to prepare the way carefully for a permanent success; and the directors seem to have looked upon the undertaking as highly speculative, and to have cared more for the shares showing well for a few days, than for its stability.

The cable, in this lame condition in one of its halves at least, was completed in July, and in August was shipped in equal moieties in the United States’ frigate Niagara, and Her Majesty’s ship Agamemnon. The first attempt to lay it was unsuccessful: a neglect to ease the cable as the stern of the vessel lifted with the rolling sea, broke it at a distance of 335 miles from Valentia. The ships now returned to Plymouth, and the cable was coiled into tanks at Keyham, where it underwent more surgical operations; indeed, if there was any real and lasting vitality in it before, here it was extinguished. If a test was wanted, the first thing done was to cut the cable, and then cobble it up again. Those who had charge of it state that from first to last it was cut into at least a hundred pieces! Of course the result was that it was cut up into a hundred clumsy joints, many of which were made in the course of paying out the cable at sea, and any one of which endangered the life of the wire. The leakage, or the escape of the current through these fractures, was declared to be “very high,” even at Keyham; but the poor cable had yet much more to endure ere it found its resting-place at the bottom of the Atlantic.

In the spring of 1858, the cable was again stowed on board the two ships, and after two unsuccessful attempts they proceeded to mid-ocean, and there joining hands, or in other words, the two ends of the electric cable, they steamed away for either shore. During the paying out a regular communication was kept up between the two ships; these, however, were so feeble, that some serious damage was made evident. On one occasion the current ceased to flow, and it was anticipated that a fatal fracture had taken place; but the current, after a short time, came as well as before, and it