Part 3

Whenever separate lengths of the gutta percha covered core were to be joined together, the gutta percha was scraped away for a short distance from the ends, and these were made to overlap. A piece of copper wire was then attached by firm brazing, an inch or two beyond the joint on one side, tightly bound round until it reached to the same extent on the other side, and then was there firmly brazed on again. A second binding was next rolled over the first in the same fashion, and extended a little way beyond it, and finally several layers of gutta percha were carefully laid over, and all round the joint by the agency of hot irons. If the core on each side of the joint was dragged opposite ways until the joint yielded, the outer investment of the wire unrolled spirally as the ends were pulled asunder, and so the conducting continuity of the strand was maintained, although the mechanical continuity of the strand itself was broken.

The two-mile coils of completed and proved core were wound on large drums with projecting flanges on each side, the rims of which were shod with iron tires, so that they might be rolled about as broad wheels, and made to perform their own locomotive offices as far as possible. When the core was in position on these channelled drums, the circumference of the drum was closed in carefully by a sheet of gutta percha, which thus constituted its core-filled channel a sort of cylindrical box or packing case. In this snug nest each completed coil of core was wheeled and dragged away to be transferred to the manufactory, either at Birkenhead or Greenwich.

The core-filled drums, having arrived at the factory of the Cable, the drums were mounted by axles, and kept ready so that one extremity of the length of core might be attached to the Cable as it was spun out, when the drum previously in use had been exhausted. During the unrolling of the core from the drum, it was wound tightly round by a serving of hemp, saturated with a composition made chiefly of pitch and tar, the winding being effected by revolving bobbins as the core was drawn along. This hempen serving constituted a bed for the external coat of metallic wires, and prevented the insulating sheath of gutta percha from being injured by pressure during the final stage of the construction. Each new length of core was attached to the Cable by precisely the same operation as that used at the gutta percha works in joining the two-mile coils for testing; shortly before an old drum was exhausted, its remainder was rapidly pulled off and placed in the joiner’s hands, so that it might be made continuous with the core on a new drum, before the outgoing Cable began to draw upon it.

When the core was covered in with its great coat of hemp and tar, and carefully gauged to ascertain the equality of its dimensions everywhere, it was ready to be turned into the completed Cable. This final operation was effected as the core was drawn up through the centre of a horizontally revolving wheel or table. The table turned with great rapidity, and carried near its circumference eighteen bobbins or drums. Each of these drums was filled with a strand of bright charcoal iron wire, and had two motions, one round its horizontal axis, and one round an upright pivot, inserted into the revolving table, so that it delivered its strand always towards the centre of the table as it was carried swiftly round by the revolution. The iron strand was of the same diameter as that which was used for the copper core. There were also seven iron wires in each strand, exactly like those for the copper strand. Eighteen iron strands were thus firmly twisted round the central core, as the “closing machine” whirled. The core, acted on by the rollers of the machinery, rose through the middle of the table, and went up towards the ceiling. The iron strands danced round it, as it went up, in a filmy-looking spectre-like cone, which narrowed and grew more matter-of-fact and distinct as it ascended, until it glittered in a compact metallic twist, tightly embracing the core. The eighteen strands of seven-thread wire were used for this metallic envelope in place of eighteen simple wires of the same size as the strand, because by this means greater flexibility and strength were obtained for the weight of material employed.

Each strand machine worked day and night, and in the twenty-four hours spun ninety-eight miles of wire into fourteen miles of strand. There were several strand machines at work in the factories, and these every twenty-four hours made 2,058 miles of wire into 294 miles of strand. As much as thirty miles of Cable were made in a single day. The entire length of wire, copper, and iron employed in the manufacture, amounted to 332,500 miles, enough to girdle the earth thirteen times.

As the closed Cable was completed, it was drawn out from the wall of the factory, and passed through a cistern containing pitch and tar, and was then coiled in broad pits in the outer yard (each layer of the coil having been again brushed over with pitch and tar), and there remained until embarked on board the vessel which conveyed it to its final home. At both the Greenwich and Birkenhead works, four Cables, each three hundred miles long, were simultaneously in process of construction. These were finally united together into one continuous rope, as the Cable was stowed away in the vessel which carried it to sea.

Such is a description of the Cable finally adopted, and which when completed weighed from nineteen hundredweight to one ton per mile, and bore a direct strain of from four to five tons without breaking.

The next question which arose for consideration was, how the Cable was to be laid in the ocean. The Great Eastern, then known as the Leviathan, alone could embrace it within her gigantic hold; but then the vast fabric had never been tried. She might prove a failure, and in doing so, involve that of a far greater and a far more important experiment.

It was then determined that the responsibility should be divided, and the burden be entrusted to two vessels of smaller dimensions. The British Government placed at the service of the Company the Agamemnon line-of-battle ship, and the government of the United States of America sent over the Niagara.

The Agamemnon was considered to be admirably adapted for receiving the Cable, by reason of her peculiar construction; her engines being situated near the stern, and there, being amidships a magnificent hold, forty-five feet square and twenty feet deep between the lower deck and the keel. In this receptacle one half of the Cable was distributed round a central core in a compact, single, and nearly circular coil. She lay moored off the wharf at Greenwich, and the Cable was drawn into her hold by a small journeyman engine of twelve-horse power, the rope running over sheaves borne aloft upon the masts of two or three barges, so moored between the wharf and the ship as to afford intermediate support. The Niagara, though not by construction well adapted for the Cable, was rendered so by judicious alterations at Portsmouth. She arrived in the Mersey on 22nd June, and was regarded with much curiosity and interest in Liverpool, where Captain Hudson and his officers received every attention. The Cable was coiled on board her in three weeks. Cork Harbour was selected as the place where these vessels should rendezvous, and make all final arrangements; from whence they were to proceed to the completion of the task, piloted by the U.S. frigate Susquehanna and H.M. frigate Leopard, both paddle-wheel steamers of great power.

Within the barony of Iveragh, in the county of Kerry, on an island six miles long by two broad, lies the village of Knightstown and harbour of Valentia, the most westerly port in Europe. It is at the southern entrance of the open bay of Dingle towards the sea. Doulas Head on the east, and Reenadroolan Point on the west, mark the entrance to the narrows. It can boast of two forts erected by Cromwell. The Skelligs--two picturesque and rugged pinnacles of slate--pierce the surface of the sea about eight miles S.W. of the harbour; and one of these, the “Great Skellig,” crowned with a light-house, towers to a height of 700 feet.

It was decided by the Company that the Niagara should land the shore end in Valentia, and pay it out till her cargo was exhausted mid-way, where the Agamemnon was to take up the tale and carry it on to Newfoundland. The time best adapted for depositing the Cable in the ocean was determined after much thought and deliberation. The result of Lieutenant Maury’s observations was, that in the months of June and July the risk of storms is very small, unless immediately on the coast of Ireland, while the records of the Meteorological Departments, both in England and America, showed that for fifty years no great storm had taken place at that period. It was finally arranged to adopt Lieutenant Maury’s views, “that between the 20th July and the 10th of August both sea and air were in the most favourable condition for laying down the Cable,” and that the vessels should be dispatched so as to reach the rendezvous in mid-ocean, where the Cable was to be spliced, as soon after the 20th of July as possible. It had been ascertained that the distance over which the Cable was to be laid was 1,834 miles, but 600 additional miles of Cable were provided, being an allowance of 33 per cent. of “slack.”

Arrangements had been made that when the vessels joined company off Cork the entire length of the Cable should be temporarily joined up for the purpose of being tested through its entire length, as also to allow of some experiments being made to prove the efficiency of the signalling apparatus. The Cable was arranged so as to come up from the hold of the ship sweeping round a central block or core planted in the midst, to prevent any interference of the unrolling strands with one another, or too sudden turns, which might twist the Cable into kinks; having reached the open space above the deck, it was to be wound out and in, round four grooved sheaves, geared together by cogs, and planted so firmly on girders as to render it impossible that they should be thrown out of the square. From sheaves accurately grooved the Cable proceeded three or four feet above the poop-deck, until it passed over a fifth grooved sheave standing out upon rigid arms over the stern. From this it would make its plunge into the deep still sea, and as the vessel moved away to be dragged out by its own weight, and by the hold which it would have acquired upon the bottom of the sea. The paying-out sheaves were large grooved drums, five feet in diameter, and set in a vertical plane, one directly before the other, and having a friction drum geared to them in such a way that its shaft revolved three times as fast as theirs, the axis of the drum being encircled by two blocks of hard wood, which could be gripped close upon its circumference by screw power, so as either to retard or arrest altogether the movement of the sheaves. The screw was worked by a crank, at which a trustworthy officer was stationed, to keep a wary eye upon an indicator near to express the exact amount of strain thrown upon the Cable at each instant. In the electrician’s department there were to be signals every second by electrical currents passing through the entire length of the Cable, from shore-end, or from ship to ship. At the side of the vessels patent logs hung down into the water, to measure the velocity of the ship. One of these wheels, in the immersed log, was arranged to make and break an electric circuit at every revolution, a gutta percha covered wire running up from the revolving wheel on to the deck of the ship, that it might carry the current whenever the circuit was made, and record there, upon a piece of apparatus provided for the purpose, the speed of the vessel. The brakesman was to watch the tell-tale which would indicate the strain on the rope, and work his crank and loosen his grip whenever this seemed to be too great; or tighten his grip if ever the bell ceased to report that the electrical way from end to end of the Cable was free and unimpaired. An external guard had been placed over the screws of the vessels to defend the Cable from fouling in case any necessity should arise for backing the vessels. The Agamemnon had been jury-rigged for the service, her heavy masts and rigging removed, and lighter ropes and spars substituted. In the event of sudden and unforeseen storm, arrangements had been made to slip the Cable. On the decks of the paying-out vessels two large reels were placed, each wound round with two and a-half miles of a very strong auxiliary Cable composed of iron-wire only, and capable of resisting a strain of ten to twelve tons. Should the Telegraph Cable be endangered it would be divided, and the sea end attached to one of the strong supernumerary cords stored upon the reel; this being rapidly let out, would place the Cable in a depth of ocean where its safety would be secured until all danger had passed. In fine, every possible contrivance that ingenuity could devise or scientific knowledge could suggest, according to the experience then attained, had been adopted in order to secure success. Those who had toiled so long with wearied brain and anxious heart, undismayed by difficulties--not disheartened by failure, hoping when hope seemed presumptuous, but not despairing even when despair seemed wisdom, now felt that their part had been accomplished, that the means of securing the result had now passed beyond man’s control, and rested solely with a Higher Power.

On the 29th of July, 1857, the U.S.N. frigate Niagara arrived at Queenstown, having been preceded by H.M.S. Leopard and H.M.S. Cyclops, which latter steamer had taken the soundings of the intended bed of the Cable. The Niagara was accompanied by the U.S.N.S. Susquehanna, to act as her convoy. H.M.S. Agamemnon had already arrived.

The Earl of Carlisle, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, ever anxious to give such encouragement as his presence could afford to any undertaking which promised to do good, came down from Dublin to Valentia, and attended a _déjeuner_ given by the Knight of Kerry to celebrate an event in which the keenest interest was evinced, although the heart of the country was thrilled by the dreadful intelligence of Indian mutinies and revolt. The country people flocked to the little island, and expressed their joy by merrymakings, dances, and bonfires. In an eloquent speech Lord Carlisle declared that though disappointment might be in store for the promoters, it would be almost criminal to feel discouragement then--“that the pathway to great achievements has frequently to be hewn out amidst perils and difficulties, and that preliminary failure is ever the law and condition of ultimate success.” These were prophetic words; in others, still to be fulfilled, “Let us hope,” he said. “We are about, either by this sun-down or by to-morrow’s dawn, to establish a new material link between the Old World and the New. Moral links there have been--links of race, links of commerce, links of friendship, links of literature, links of glory; but this, our new link, instead of superseding and supplanting the old ones, is to give them a life and intensity they never had before. The link which is now to connect us, like the insect in a couplet of our poet,

‘While exquisitely fine, Feels at each thread and moves along the line.’”

If anything could overcome the tendency of men to vaticinate, it surely would be the sad history of the last few years in the United States. The condition of affairs in that lamentable period is illustrated by another passage of his lordship’s speech, which also points out the inestimable value of the telegraph as a conservator of peace. “We may as we take our stand here on the extremest rocky side of our beloved Ireland, leave, as it were, behind us the wars, the strifes, and the bloodshed of the older Europe, and pledge ourselves, weak as our agency may be, imperfect as our powers may be, inadequate in strict diplomatic form as our credentials may be; yet, in the face of the unparalleled circumstances of the place and the hour, in the immediate neighbourhood of the mighty vessels whose appearance may be beautiful upon the waters, even as are the feet upon mountains of those who preach the Gospel of peace--as a homage due to that serene science which often affords higher and holier lessons of harmony and goodwill than the wayward passions of man are always apt to learn--in the face and in the strength of such circumstances, let us pledge ourselves to eternal peace between the Old World and the New. Why, gentlemen, what excuse would there be for misunderstanding? What justification could there be for war, when the disarming message, when the full explanation, when the genial and healing counsel may be wafted even across the mighty Atlantic, quicker than the sunbeam’s path and the lightning’s flash?” At that moment Great Britain was just disengaged from a war with Russia and a war with Persia, and was actively engaged in a war with China, and with mutinies in India. France was preparing to deal Austria a deadly blow; America looked pityingly across the Atlantic, and wondered at our folly and our crimes.

On August the 5th, 1857, the shore end of the Cable was secured in the little cove selected for the purpose in Valentia, on the cliffs above which a telegraphic station had been erected, and was hauled up amidst the greatest enthusiasm, Lord Carlisle participating in the joy and the labour.

On the evening of Friday, August 7th, the squadron sailed, and the Niagara commenced paying out the Cable very slowly. About four miles of the shore Cable had been payed out, when it became entangled with the machinery, by the carelessness of one of the men in charge, and broke; all hands were engaged in trying to underrun and join the Cable, but it was too rough, and the Niagara came to anchor for the night. Next day a splice was mode, the ship resumed her course, and at noon on Sunday, August 9th, 95 miles had been payed out. The paying-out gear proved to be defective in the course of the 10th. On the evening of Tuesday, the 11th, all signals suddenly ceased. The Cable had broken in 2000 fathoms of water, when about 330 nautical miles were laid, at a distance of 280 miles from Valentia. At the time the ship was going from three to four knots, and was able to pay out 5 to 5¾ miles per hour, the pressure shown by the indicator being 3000lb., but the strain being no doubt much greater.

This loss proved fatal to the first attempt to lay the Atlantic Cable, as on consultation among the officers and engineers it appeared to be unwise to renew the attempt with only 1,847 miles on board the ships, or an excess of 12 per cent. on the quantity required by the whole distance.

Nothing daunted by the failure, Mr. Field started off at once in H.M.S. Cyclops for England, and, on his arrival, urged the immediate renewal of the enterprise; but it was resolved by the directors in London to postpone it to the following year. An addition to the capital of the Company was proposed and agreed to. The greater part of the autumn was devoted to preparations for the renewed efforts of the Company. The part of the Cable which was left was landed at Keyham, 53 miles of the shore-end were recovered, and the Company again applied to the British and American Governments for the services of the same vessels which had been previously lent to them. Messrs. Glass, Elliot, & Co., were entrusted by the directors of The Atlantic Telegraph Company to manufacture a further length of 900 miles, to replace that which was lost or damaged, thus making a total of 3,012 miles of Cable, so as to guard against accidents by giving an allowance of 40 per cent. of slack. The paying-out apparatus was also improved, so that the engineer in charge alone should control the egress of the Cable, instead of using the hand-wheel, which, upon the former occasion, had caused much danger in rough weather.

The manufacturers of the machinery were Messrs. Easton & Amos, of Southwark, under the superintendence of Mr. Penn, Mr. Field, Mr. Lloyd, Mr. Everett, and Mr. Bright.

The important part of the apparatus consisted of Appold’s self-regulating brake, so adjusted and constructed as always to exert a certain amount of resistance, regulated by the revolution of the wheels to which it was applied. More than this fixed amount of resistance, whatever it might be, it could not produce, no matter whether the machine was hot or dry, or covered with sand; neither could it be worked at less than this amount. It was made of bars of wood laid lengthwise across the edge of the wheel, over which it lapped down firmly, and to which it was held with massive weights fixed to the ends of levers, which regulated the degree of resistance to the revolutions of the wheel, and which, of course, enabled those in charge of the machine to fix the pressure of the brake. In the new apparatus the brake was attached over two drums connected with the two main grooved wheels, round which the actual Cable passed in running out. The latter were simply broad, solid, iron wheels, each cut with four very deep grooves in which the Cable rested, to prevent it flying up or “overriding.” It passed over these two main wheels, not in a double figure of eight, as in the old ponderous machine of four wheels, but simply wound over one, to and round the other, and so on four times, till it was finally payed down into the water. Thus, the wire was wound up from the hold of the vessel, passed four times over the double main wheels, connected with the brake or friction drums, past the register which indicated the rate of paying out and the strain upon the Cable, and then ran at once into the deep. The strain at which the Cable would break was 62 cwt., and to guard against any chance of mishap, not more than half this strain was put upon it. The brakes, as a rule, were fixed to give a strain of about 16 cwt., and the force required to keep the machine going, or about 8 cwt. more, was the utmost that was allowed to come upon the wire.

The brake of the paying-out machine used on the occasion of the first attempt was capable, by a movement of the hand, of exerting prodigious resistance. In the new machine any one could in a moment ease it, until there was no resistance at all beyond the 8 cwt. strain on the wire.

At a few feet from the paying-out machine, the Cable passed over a wheel, which registered precisely the strain in pounds at which the coil was running out. Facing this register was a steering wheel, similar to that of an ordinary vessel, and connected in the same way with compound levers, which acted upon the brake. The officer in charge of the apparatus stood by this wheel, and watched the register of strain or pitch of the vessel, opening the brakes by the slightest movement of his hand, and letting the Cable run freely as the stern rose. The same officer, however, could not by any possible method increase the actual strain on the Cable, which remained always according to the friction at which the brake was at first adjusted by the engineer.

All was ready for the expedition before the time indicated, and the directors and the public looked with confidence to the result. Instead of landing a shore-end at Valentia, and making a junction of the Cable, it was decided that the ships should proceed together to a point midway between Trinity Bay and Valentia, there splice the Cable, and then turn their bows east and west, and proceed to their destinations.

On Thursday, the 10th of June, 1858, H.M.S. Agamemnon and U.S.N.S. Niagara, accompanied by H.M.S. Valorous and H.M.S. Gorgon, left Plymouth, the two former having previously made an experimental cruise in the Channel with the Cables, which were very satisfactory, in all respects.