Part 6

Chapter 63,621 wordsPublic domain

This dynamometer was only a heavy wheel resting on the rope, but fixed in an upright frame, which allowed it to slide freely up and down, and on this frame were marked the figures which showed exactly the strain in pounds on the Cable. Thus, when the strain was low the Cable slackened, and the dynamometer sunk low with it; when, on the contrary, the strain was great, the Cable was drawn “taut,” and on it the dynamometer rose to its full height. When it sunk too low, the Cable was generally running away too fast, and the brakes had to be applied to check it; when, on the contrary, it rose rapidly the tension was dangerous, and the brakes had to be almost opened to relieve it. The simplicity of the apparatus for opening and shutting the brakes was most beautiful. Opposite the dynamometer was placed a tiller-wheel, and the man in charge of it never let it go or slackened in his attention for an instant, but watched the rise and fall of the dynamometer as a sailor at the wheel watches his compass. A single movement of this wheel to the right put the brakes on, a turn to the left opened them. A good and experienced brakeman would generally contrive to avoid either extreme of a high or low strain, though there were few duties connected with the laying of submarine cables which were more anxious and more responsible while they last, than those connected with the management of the brakes. The whole machine worked beautifully, and with so little friction that when the brakes were removed, a weight of 200 lb. was sufficient to draw the Cable through it.

In order to guard against any possible sources of accident, every preparation was made in case of the worst, and, in the event of very bad weather, for cutting the Cable adrift and buoying it. For this purpose a wire rope of great strength, and no less than five miles long, having a distinctive mark at every 100 fathoms, was taken in the Great Eastern. This, of course, was only carried in case of desperate eventualities arising, and in the earnest hope that not an inch of it would ever be required. If, as unfortunately happened, its services were wanted, the Cable could be firmly made fast to its extremity, and so many hundred fathoms of the wire rope, according to the depth of water the Cable was in, measured out. To the other end of the rope an immense buoy was attached, and the whole would then be cut adrift and left to itself till better weather.

On the 24th of May, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, accompanied by many distinguished personages, paid a long visit to the Great Eastern, for the purpose of inspecting the arrangements made for laying the Cable. His Royal Highness was received by Mr. Pender, the Chairman of the Telegraph Construction Company; Mr. Glass, Managing Director; and a large number of the electricians and officers connected with the undertaking. After partaking of breakfast, the Prince visited each portion of the ship, and witnessed the transmission of a message sent through the coils, which then represented in length 1,395 nautical miles. The signals transmitted were seven words, =“I WISH SUCCESS TO THE ATLANTIC CABLE,”= and were received at the other end of the coils in the course of a few seconds--a rate of speed which spoke hopefully of success.

On Monday, the 29th of May, the last mile of this gigantic Cable was completed at Glass, Elliot, & Co.’s works; an event celebrated in the presence of all the eminent scientific men who had laboured so zealously in the promotion of the undertaking at Greenwich. When the tinkling of the bell gave notice that the machine was empty, and the last coil of the Cable stowed away, the mighty work, the accomplishment of which was their dream by night and their study by day, stood completed. For eight long months the huge machines had been in a constant whirl, manufacturing those twenty-three hundred nautical miles of Cable destined to perform a mission so important, and yet it would be difficult to point to a single hour during which they did not yield something to cause care and anxiety.

On Wednesday, the 14th of June, the Amethyst completed her final visit, and commenced to deliver the last instalment of the Cable to the Great Eastern.

On the 24th the Great Eastern left the Medway for the Nore, carrying 7000 tons of Cable, 2000 tons of iron tanks, and 7000 tons of coal. At the Nore she took in 1,500 additional tons of coal, which brought her total dead-weight to 21,000 tons.

Mr. Gooch, M.P., Chairman of the Great Eastern Company and Director of the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company; Mr. Barber (Great Eastern), Mr. Cyrus Field, Captain Hamilton, Directors of the Atlantic Telegraph Company; M. Jules Despescher; Mr. H. O’Neil, A.R.A.; Mr. Brassey, Mr. Fairbairn, Mr. Dudley, the representatives of some of the principal journals, and several visitors, went round in the vessel from the Nore to Ireland.

The whole of the arrangements for paying-out and landing the Cable were in charge of Mr. Canning, principal Engineer to the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company, Mr. Clifford being in charge of the machinery. These gentlemen were assisted by Mr. Temple, Mr. London, and eight experienced engineers and mechanists. A corps of Cable layers was furnished by the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company.

All the arrangements at Valentia were under the direction of Mr. Glass.

Mr. Varley, chief electrician to the Atlantic Telegraph Company, was appointed to report on the laying of the Cable, and to see that the conditions of the contract were complied with. Associated with him was Professor W. Thomson, LL.D., F.R.S., of Glasgow. His staff was composed of Mr. Deacon, Mr. Medley, Mr. Trippe, and Mr. Perry.

Several young gentlemen interested in engineering and science were accommodated with a passage on board.

At noon on July 15th the Great Eastern, in charge of Mr. Moore, Trinity pilot, drawing 34 ft. 4 in. forward, and 28 ft. 6 in. aft, got up her anchor, and at midnight on July 16th was off the Lizard. On Monday, 17th, she came up with the screw steamer Caroline, freighted with 27 miles of the Irish shore end of the Cable, weighing 540 tons, and took her in tow. Then a gale set in, which gave occasion to the Great Eastern to show her fine qualities as a sea-boat when properly handled. Even those who were most prejudiced or most diffident, admitted that on that score no vessel could behave better. This trial gave every one, from Captain Anderson down, additional reason to be satisfied with the fitness of the great ship for the task on which she was engaged. Next day, Tuesday, July 18th, she encountered off the Irish coast a strong gale with high westerly sea, through which she ran at the rate of six knots an hour. The Caroline, which rolled so heavily and pitched so vigorously as to excite serious apprehensions, broke the tow rope in the course of the day, and ran for Valentia harbour, where she arrived safely, piloted by the Great Eastern; and the Great Eastern, passing inside the Skelligs, stood in close to Valentia Lighthouse, and sent a boat ashore to communicate. H.M.S. Terrible, Captain Napier, and H.M.S. Sphinx, Captain V. Hamilton, were visible in the offing, having sailed at the end of the previous week from Queenstown for the rendezvous, outside Valentia. Captain Anderson having fired a gun to announce his arrival, steamed for Berehaven, in Bantry Bay, and anchored inside the island on Wednesday morning, July 19th, in 17 fathoms. Here the Great Eastern lay, preparing for her great errand--perhaps, as it may prove, her exclusive “mission,”--on Thursday, 20th, Friday, 21st, and Saturday, 22nd July, whilst the Caroline was landing the shore end of the Cable in Foilhummerum Bay in Valentia. During her stay in Bantry Bay, many visitors, high and low, came on board the Great Ship, but it was believed all over the country that she was going to Foilhummerum. The greater portion of those anxious to see her made the best of their way to that secluded spot, to which there was once more attached an interest of a civilised character; for, if country legends be true, there must have been some regard paid to Foilhummerum Bay by no less a person than Oliver Cromwell, testified yet by the grey walls of a ruined fort, and traces of a moat and outer wall, on the greensward above the point which forms the northern entrance to the lonely bay. This crisp greensward, glistening with salt, lies in a thin crust over the cliffs, which rise sheerly from the sea some three or four hundred feet; and for what Oliver Cromwell or any one else could have erected a fortalice thereon, may well baffle conjecture, unless the builder, having a far-reaching mind, saw the importance of watching the most westerly portion of Europe, or anticipated the day when Valentia would be recognised as one of the landmarks created by the necessities of commercial and social existence. Taking advantage of the shelter afforded by a gradual descent inland of the soil, a few cabins have been placed by the natives--half-fishermen, half-husbandmen--Archytas-like, spanning land and sea, and making but poor subsistence from their efforts on both. The little bay, which is not much above a mile in length, contracts from a breadth of half so much, into a watery _cul-de-sac_, terminated by steep banks of shale, earth, and high cliff, furrowed by watercourses; and on the southernmost side it is locked in by the projecting ledges of rock forming the northern entrance to the Port Magee channel. It is so guarded from wind and sea, that on one side only is it open to their united action, but as the entrance looks nearly west, the full roll of the Atlantic may break in upon it when the wind is from that point; and indeed there is not wanting evidence that the wild ocean swell must tumble in there with frightful violence. Jagged fragments of masts and spars are wedged into the rocks immovably by the waves, and the cliffs are gnawed out by the restless teeth of the hungry water into deep caves. But then a sea from that point would run parallel with the line of the Cable, and would sweep along with and not athwart its course, so that the strands would not be driven to and fro and ground out against the bottom. Except for a couple of hundred feet near the shore at the top of this cove, indeed, the bottom is sandy, and the rocks inside the sand line were calculated to form a protection to the Cable, once deposited, as the greater part of its course lay through a channel which had been cleared of the boulders with the intention of rolling them back again at low water, to cover in the shore end. Lieutenant White, and the hardy and hard-working sailors of the Coastguard Station at Valentia, had been indefatigable in sounding and buoying out a channel from the beach clear out to sea, within which the Caroline was to drop the Cable. A few yards back from the cliff, at the head of the cove, the temporary Telegraph Station reared its proportions in imitation of a dwarf Brompton boiler--a building of wood much beslavered with tar and pitch, of exceeding plainness, and let us hope of corresponding utility. Inside were many of the adjuncts of comfort, not to speak of telegraphic luxury, galvanometers, wires, batteries, magnets, Siemens’s and B. A. unit cases, and the like, as well as properties which gave the place a false air of campaigning. A passage led from end to end, with rooms for living and sleeping in to the right and left, and an instrument room at the far extremity. Here, on a narrow platform, were the signal and speaking apparatus connected with the wires from the end of the Cable, which was secured inside the house. Outside the wires were carried by posts in the ordinary way to the station at Valentia, whence they were conveyed to Killarney, and placed in communication with the general Telegraphic system over the world. The Telegraphic staff and operators were lodged in primitive apartments like the sections of a Crimean hut, and did not possess any large personal facility for enjoying social intercourse with the outer world, although so much intelligence passed through their fingers. But Foilhummerum may in time become a place with something more real than a future. If vessels from the westward do not like to make their number outside, there is nothing to prevent their running into Valentia for the purpose, at all events. On the plateau between the station and the cliff, day after day hundreds of the country people assembled, and remained watching with exemplary patience for the Big Ship. They came from the mainland across Port Magee, or flocked in all kinds of boats from points along the coast, dressed in their best, and inclined to make the most of their holiday, and a few yachts came round from Cork and Bantry with less rustic visitors. Tents were soon improvised by the aid of sails, some cloths of canvas, and oars and boathooks, inside which bucolic refreshment could be obtained. Mighty pots of potatoes seethed over peat fires outside, and the reek from within came forth strongly suggestive of whisky and bacon. Flags fluttered--the Irish green, with harp, crown surmounted; Fitzgerald, green with its blazon of knight on horse rampant, and motto of “Malahar aboo”--faint suspicion of Stars and Stripes and Union Jack, and one temperance banner, audaciously mendacious, as it flaunted over John Barleycorn. Nor was music wanting. The fiddler and the piper had found out the island and the festive spot, and seated on a bank, played planxty and jig to a couple or two in the very limited circle formed in the soft earth by plastic feet or ponderous shoemasonry, around which, sitting and standing, was a dense crowd of spell-bound, delighted spectators. In the bay below danced the light canvas-covered canoe or coracle in which the native fishermen will face the mountain billows of the Atlantic when no other boat will venture forth; and large yawls filled with country people passed to and fro, and the bright groupings of colour formed on the cliffs and on the waters by the red, scarlet, and green shawls of the women and girls, lighted up the scene wonderfully.

It would be gratifying if in such a primitive spot one could shut his eyes to the painful evidence that the vices of civilisation--if they be so--had crept in and lapt the souls of the people in dangerous pleasures. But it could not be denied that the spirit of gambling and gourmandise were there. Seated in a ditch, with a board on their knees, four men were playing “Spoil Five” with cards, for discrimination of which a special gift must have been required; but they were as silent, eager, and grave, as though they had been Union or Portland champions contesting last trick and rub. Near them was one who summoned mankind to tempt capricious Fortune by means of an iron skewer, rotating an axis above a piece of tarpaulin stretched on a rude table, which was enlivened by rays of vivid colour. At the end of each ray was an object of art--the guerdon of success--an old penknife, brass tobacco-box, tooth-comb, thimble, wooden nutmeg, or the like. A very scarecrow professor of legerdemain and knavery hid his pea, and challenged detection, and divided public attention with a wizard who presided over a wooden circle with a spinning needle in the centre to point to radii, at end of which were copper moneys deposited by the adventurers, who generally saw them whisked off into the magician’s grimy pocket. An ancient woman, spinning, and guarding a basket of most atrabilious confectionery, and a stall garnished with buttons and gingerbread, completed the attractions of Foilhummerum during this festive time.

The matter of wonder was, what the people flocked to see, for it must soon have been known the Great Eastern was not there. The Hawk and the Caroline, as they went into Valentia, did duty successfully for the Big Ship, and the steam-yacht Alexandra, belonging to the Dublin Ballast Board, and H.M. tender Advice, created a sensation as they appeared in the offing on their way to the same rendezvous. All that related to the Cable and the laying of it possessed the utmost interest for the country people, simply because the Cable went westwards across the ocean to the home of their hopes. Many of the poor people believed that it would facilitate communications with their friends in the land to which their thoughts are for ever tending, remembering perhaps the words of Lord Carlisle when he told them of the advantages the Telegraphic Cable would confer upon them.

The village of Knightstown witnessed an unusual influx of visitors, and those whom the hospitable roof of Glenleam could not stretch its willing eaves over, found something more than shelter in the inn and in the comfortable houses which acted as its succursales on the occasion. But there was in the midst of all the pleasurable excitement of the moment a tinge of dissatisfaction, because the people had persuaded themselves that if they were not to see the Great Eastern in the harbour, they would at least have H.M.S.S. Terrible and Sphinx, and the satellites of the Leviathan in their anchorage, and all they beheld of the men of war was their smoke and faint outlines on the distant horizon.

The Terrible and Sphinx might have coaled in Valentia, and waited there for the arrival of the Great Eastern, of which they could have heard by telegraph, instead of towing colliers to Cork and going into Berehaven, where there is no telegraph. Now, as to this harbour, let it be admitted at once that its entrance is only 180 yards broad. But the “Narrows” of Valentia Harbour is like a very short neck to a bottle, and after less than a ship’s length, the channel enlarges sufficiently to allow several vessels to sail abreast in water which is never rough enough to prevent the passage of boats to Begennis or Renard Point. Indeed, Capt. Wolfe’s report to the Hydrographer to the Admiralty expresses an opinion that the Needles’ passage is more intricate and dangerous. The Skelligs on one side and the Blasketts on the other mark the approach very distinctly. Inside, there is 600 acres, or more than a square mile, of harbour, with good holding ground, having a maximum of six furlongs and a minimum of three furlongs water.

The disappointment caused by the cautious indifference of the Terrible and Sphinx to the advantages of lying snugly inside Valentia Harbour was felt acutely. The Knight of Kerry, who has taken such an interest in the undertaking, and all the inhabitants, regarded it as a mark of distrust in the safety of the anchorage and in the facility of access to it, which was without any justification, and some ascribed it to less creditable influences and objects; but no one could believe that the officers in command of the ships kept out at sea in such weather, wearying the crews and wasting coals, without direct orders, or that they would hesitate to run in, if left to themselves, as soon as it was evident the point of rendezvous ten miles from shore was not intended as a permanent station. The harbour had been visited by H.M.S.S. Stromboli, Hecate, Leopard, Cyclops, the U.S. frigate Susquehanna, and many large merchantmen, including the Carrier Dove, a vessel of 2,400 tons.

On July 19th a channel was made down the cliff to the beach for the shore end of the Cable, which was carried down in an outer case through a culvert of masonry, and deposited in a cut made as far into the sea as the state of the tide would admit. On the 21st an “earth” Cable, with a zinc earth, on Mr. Varley’s plan, was carried out into the bay from the station, and safely deposited outside the channel marked for the Cable. The Caroline went round from Valentia to Foilhummerum, and on July 22nd the shore end of the Cable was carried from her over a bridge formed of twenty-five yawls belonging to the district, amid great cheering, and hauled up the cliffs to the station. The safe arrival of the terminal wire in the building, in the presence of a large assemblage, took place at 12·45, Greenwich time, and as the day was fine, the scene, to which the fleet of boats in the bay gave unusual animation, was witnessed to the greatest advantage.