CHAPTER XVI

RECOVERY AND COMPLETION OF THE 1865 CABLE

Prospects and Plans--Setting to Work--Repeated Failures--Ultimate Triumph--Electricians Ashore--"Spot-watching"--"Putting-through"--Pioneering--Working the Lines.

_Prospects and Plans._--It now remained to find the end of the cable lost on August 2, 1865, situated about 604 miles from Newfoundland, to pick it up, splice on to the cable remaining on board, and finish the work so unfortunately interrupted the year before. The difficulties to be overcome can be readily imagined, the cable lying 2,000 fathoms without mark of any kind to indicate its position. The buoys put down after the accident had long since disappeared, either their moorings having dragged during various gales of wind, or the wire ropes which held them having chafed through, owing to incessant rise and fall at the bottom. The position of the lost end had to be determined by astronomical observations. These necessitate clear weather, and can then only give approximate results on account of the variable ocean currents, which sometimes flow at the rate of three knots. Moreover, for grappling and raising the cable to the bows, the sea must be tolerably smooth; and in that part where the work lay a succession of fine days is rare, even in the month of August. However, they still had on board Captain Moriarty, one of the ablest navigators in the world. Added to this, the greater portion of the cable in deep water had been paid out with about 15 per cent slack.

The chiefs of the expedition, fully confident of success, hastened their preparations, and on August 9, 1866, the Great Eastern again put to sea, accompanied by S.S. Medway. On the 12th the vessels arrived on the scene of action, and joined company with H.M.S. Terrible and S.S. Albany, these vessels having left Heart's Content Bay a week in advance to buoy the line of the 1865 cable and commence grappling.

The plan decided on was to drag for the cable near the end with all three ships at once. The cable when raised to a certain height, was to be cut by the Medway stationed to the westward of the Great Eastern, so as to enable the latter vessel to lift the Valentia end on board. This was, of course, before the days of cutting and holding grapnels as we now have them, which render it possible for a single ship to effect repairs--even where it is out of the question to recover the cable in one bight.

_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. On August 13th the Great Eastern made her first drag, about fifteen miles from the end, and, after several vain attempts, the cable was finally hooked and lifted about 1,300 fathoms. During the operation of buoying the grappling rope, a mistake occurred which resulted in the rope slipping overboard and going to the bottom.

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. On the 19th the cable was once more hooked, and raised about a mile from the bottom, but the sea was too rough for buoying it. During the following week all three vessels dragged for the cable at different points, according to the plan previously arranged, but the weather was unfavorable, and the cable was not hooked--or, if hooked, had managed to slip away from the grapnels. The ship's company about this time became discouraged--in fact, more and more convinced of the futility of their efforts.

On the 27th the Albany signaled that they had got the cable on board with a strain of only three tons, and had buoyed the end, but it was soon discovered that her buoy was thirteen miles from the track of the cable, and that she had recovered a length of three miles which had been purposely paid overboard a few days before. Shifting ground to the eastward about fifteen miles, the vessels were now working in a depth of 2,500 fathoms. As the store of grappling rope was diminishing day by day, and the fine season rapidly coming to an end, it was decided to proceed at once eighty miles farther east, where the depth was not expected to exceed 1,900 fathoms, and there try a last chance.

_Ultimate Triumph._--After the above repeated failures, the cable was hooked on August 31st by the Great Eastern (when the grapnel had been lowered for the thirtieth time), and picking up commenced in very calm weather. The monster vessel did her work admirably. To quote the words of an eye-witness: "So delicately did she answer her helm, and coil in the film of thread-like cable, that she put one in mind of an elephant taking up a straw in its proboscis." When the bight of cable was about 900 fathoms from the surface, the grappling-rope was buoyed. The big ship then proceeded to grapple three miles west of the buoy (Fig. 41), and the Medway (with Mr. London on board) another two miles or so west of her again. The cable was soon once more hooked by both ships, and when the Medway had raised her bight to within 300 fathoms of the surface she was ordered to break it. The Great Eastern having stopped picking up when the bight was 800 fathoms from the surface, proceeded to resume the operation as soon as the intentional rupture of the cable had eased the strain, which, with a loose end of about two nautical miles, at once fell from 10 or 11 tons to 5 tons. Slowly, but surely, and amid breathless silence, the long-lost cable made its appearance at last (see opposite), for the third time above water, a little before one o'clock (early morn) of September 2d.[66]

Two hours afterward the precious end was on board, and signals were immediately exchanged with Valentia. This was at once led into the testing-room, where Mr. Willoughby Smith, in the presence of all the leaders on board, applied the tests which were to determine the important question regarding the condition of the cable, and whether it was entirely continuous to each end. In a few minutes all suspense was relieved, the tests showed the cable to be healthy and complete, and immediately afterward (in response to the ship's call) the answering signals were received from the Valentia end, which were received with loud cheers that echoed and reechoed throughout the great ship.

_Electricians Ashore: "Spot-watching."_--Let us now look at those patiently watching day after day, night after night, in the wooden telegraph cabin on shore, the experience of whom may be taken as a fair sample of that of the electrician ashore during repairing operations in the present day.

Such a length of time had elapsed since the expedition left Newfoundland that the staff at Foilhommerum, under the superintendence of Mr. James Graves, felt they were almost hoping against hope. Suddenly, on a Sunday morning at a quarter to six, while the tiny ray of light from the reflecting instrument was being watched, the operator observed it moving to and fro upon the scale. A few minutes later the unsteady flickering was changed to coherency. The long-speechless cable began to talk, and the welcome assurance arrived, "Ship to shore; I have much pleasure in speaking to you through the 1865 cable. Just going to make splice." Glad tidings were also sent from the ship via Valentia to London, and, by means of the 1866 cable, to Newfoundland and New York. Thus it happened that those being tossed about in a stormy sea held conversation with Europe and America at one and the same time.[67]

"_Putting Through._"--The recovered end was spliced on without delay to the cable on board, and the same morning at seven o'clock the Great Eastern started paying out about 680 nautical miles of cable toward Newfoundland. 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. This occurrence explained the probable cause of the faults (of same character) which had shown themselves during paying out the year before, tending to remove all suspicion of malicious intent. The faulty portion having been cut out, and the splice made without delay, paying out again proceeded, finishing the same day at eleven o'clock in the forenoon. The Medway immediately set to work laying the shore end, and that evening a second line of communication across the Atlantic was completed. The total length of this cable, commenced in 1865, was 1,896 miles; average depth, 1,900 fathoms.

_Pioneering._--The main feature and accomplishment in connection with the second and third Atlantic cables of 1865 and 1866 was, without doubt, the recovery of the former in deeper water than had ever been before effected, and in the open ocean; just as in the first 1858 line it was the demonstration of the fact that a cable could be successfully laid in such a depth and worked through electrically. In the interval between the two undertakings cable repairs had certainly been carried out in the Mediterranean in 1,400 fathoms. Moreover, the recovery and repair of a cable from the depths of the open ocean are now matters of ordinary every-day occurrence, forming part and parcel of cable operations generally. These facts should not, however, in any way detract from the greatness of the achievement at that time in so vast and boisterous an ocean.

_Working the Two Lines._--Professor Thomson's reflecting-apparatus for testing and signaling had been considerably improved since the first cable. In illustration of the degree of sensibility and perfection attained at this period in the appliances for working the line, the following experiment is of striking interest: Mr. Latimer Clark, who went to Valentia to test the cable for the "Atlantic" Company, had the conductor of the two lines joined together at the Newfoundland end, thus forming an unbroken length of 3,700 miles in circuit. He then placed some pure sulfuric acid in a silver thimble,[68] with a fragment of zinc weighing a grain or two. By this primitive agency he succeeded in conveying signals twice through the breadth of the Atlantic Ocean in little more than a second of time after making contact. The deflections were not of a dubious character, but full and strong, the spot of light traversing freely over a space of twelve inches or more, from which it was manifest that an even smaller battery would suffice to produce somewhat similar effects. Again, in testing these cables it was found that if either was disconnected from the earth and charged with electricity, it required more than an hour for half of the charge to escape through the insulating material to the earth. This speaks well for the electrical components assigned to the two lines, and for the arrangements adopted in working them. It also shows the benefit derived from seven years' extra experience in manufacture, backed up by the previously mentioned exhaustive Government inquiry thereon.

Notwithstanding the dimensions of the core, these cables were worked slowly at first, and at a rate of about eight words per minute. This, however, soon improved as the staff became more accustomed to the apparatus, and steadily increased up to fifteen--and even seventeen--words per minute on each line, with the application of condensers.

Unfortunately both these cables broke down a few months later, and one of them again during the following year. The faults were localized with great accuracy from Heart's Content by Mr. F. Lambert on behalf of Messrs. Bright & Clark, engineers to the "Anglo-American" Company.

Unlike the 1858 line, however, these last cables had not been killed electrically, and, being worthy of repairs, they were maintained for a considerable time.