THE SUBMARINE TELEGRAPH.
Some very loose and inaccurate statements having appeared in several journals respecting the submarine telegraph, it is desirable that a few facts should be brought prominently before the public, to enable them to form a correct opinion of the present condition and future prospects of an enterprise of such importance to both the commercial and scientific world.
On the 19th of July [1851] Mr. Crampton undertook to construct and lay down a cable containing four electric wires, each insulated in two coatings of gutta percha, and the whole protected by ten strands of galvanized iron wire, on or before the 30th of September. The electric wires, covered with gutta percha, in length 100 miles, were turned out by Mr. Statham, at the works of the Gutta Percha Company, and nothing can be more perfect than the manner in which that order was executed. The wire covering was ordered from Messrs Wilkins and Weatherley, but unfortunately, a dispute respecting the patent for making wire ropes occurred between that firm and Messrs. Newall, which seriously delayed the progress of the work, as an injunction was served by the latter to prevent Messrs. Wilkins and Co. from proceeding with the order. This was eventually compromised, and the rope was made conjointly by the workmen of the two firms on the premises of Messrs. Wilkins and Weatherley, at Wapping.
The very hurried manner in which (from this unforseen delay) the work had to be accomplished, prevented that close attention that ought to have been given to any fracture, however small, of the wire, and in consequence the outer casing, though of great strength and solidity, was not made with the same exquisite nicety and care that had been bestowed on the core of the cable.
On Wednesday, the 24th, the coiling of the cable in the hold of the Blazer was completed, and at mid-day she was towed off by two steam-tugs, and at 3 o’clock on Thursday morning anchored off the South Foreland. About 6 o’clock the engineers and gentlemen interested in the experiment were brought off to the South Foreland in Her Majesty’s steamer Fearless, Captain Bullock, and in half an hour’s time the telegraph rope was landed, and safely secured at a considerable elevation above high-water-mark, at the South Foreland, immediately under the upper lighthouse, and at the bottom of a shaft that descends perpendicularly from near the lighthouse to a level with the beach. Through this shaft it is proposed to carry the electric wires, and then from the summit of the cliff to run them under ground into Dover.
The point fixed for the debarcation on the French coast was Sangatte, a small village, situated about three-and-a-half miles by the coast from Calais, and about five by the public road. The distance from Sangatte to the South Foreland is 21 miles, and the length of rope on board the Blazer was 24.
Shortly after 7 o’clock the fastenings at the end of the cable at the Foreland were completed, and the Fearless started to point out the exact course to be followed by the Blazer, which was towed by two tugs, one alongside and the other ahead of her. A third tug belonging to the government was also in attendance.
The arrangements for paying out the cable consisted simply of a bar, fixed transversely above the hold, over which the rope was drawn as it was uncoiled from below, and a series of breaks acting by levers fitted to the deck, in order to arrest the passage of the rope in the case of too rapid a delivery. On reaching the stem the cable passed overboard through a "chock" of a semicircular shape, lined with iron. On starting, the steam-tugs proceeded at much too rapid a pace (from four to five knots an hour), and consequently one of the fractured wires (before alluded to) caught in the friction blocks, and before the way of the vessel could be checked, one strand of the iron wire was, for a length of about 18 yards, stripped from the cable. The steam-tug towing ahead was then ordered alongside, when the speed could be better regulated, and the rate was reduced to about one and a-half to two knots an hour. About six miles from shore it was determined to test the wires, but from a misapprehension of instructions the telegraph instruments at the South Foreland were not joined up with those on board the Blazer. A steam-tug, with one of the engineers and directors on board, immediately returned to the Foreland, when communication was made by telegraph, and fusees fired from the vessel to the shore, and from the shore to the Blazer.
At about mid-channel, in the midst of a heavy sea, and a strong wind from the S.W., an accident occurred, but for which the enterprise would have been carried out with the most perfect success; this was the snapping of the tow-rope (an eight-inch cable) and the consequent drifting of the Blazer from her appointed course to the length of a mile and a-half. Notwithstanding the delay caused by this untoward incident, the Blazer arrived off Sangatte at about six o’clock. The evening was, however, too far advanced, and the weather too stormy, to attempt a landing; and, after embarking most of her passengers on board one of the steamers that ran into Calais, she was anchored for the night about two miles from the shore.
On Friday the wind blew a strong gale from the westward, which rendered all near approach to the shore impracticable; but the Blazer was towed to within a mile of the beach, when it being considered dangerous to leave her at anchor, the remainder of the rope was made fast to a buoy and hove overboard. The steam-tugs then returned with the Blazer to England.
On Saturday the weather continued unfavourable, but Captain Bullock proceeded with the Fearless to the buoy off Sangatte, and having hauled up the end of the rope he towed it some hundred yards nearer the shore, and then again moored it.
On Sunday the wind shifted more to the southward, and moderated. Accordingly, the engineers and managers of the Gutta Percha Company took on board the Fearless a large coil of gutta percha roping, and, after hauling up the end of the telegraph cables, the first wires were carefully attached, and at half-past five in the afternoon a boat landed them on the beach at Sangatte. The moment chosen for landing was low water, and the coil of gutta percha ropes was immediately buried in the beach by a gang of men in attendance up to low water mark, and even to a short distance beyond it. Thence to where the cable was moored did not much exceed a quarter of a mile.
The telegraphs were instantly to the submarine wires, and all the instruments responded to the batteries from the opposite shore. At 6 o’clock messages were printed at Sangatte from the South Foreland, specimens of which Captain Bullock took over to Dover the same evening for the Queen and the Duke of Wellington.
On Monday morning the wires at Sangatte were joined to those already laid down to Calais; and two of the instruments used by the French government having been sent to the South Foreland, Paris was placed in immediate communication with the English court. Experiments were then tried by firing a cannon on the ramparts of Calais by means of electricity passed along the sub-marine wires from England, all of which were perfectly successful.
On Monday evening, at 6 o’clock, the Mayor and corporation entertained the gentlemen connected with the sub-marine telegraph at dinner at the Hotel de Ville, and on Tuesday morning the French man-of-war steamer Ariel, Captain Arpin, took them back to England.
On Tuesday afternoon Mr. Wollaston, civil engineer, accompanied by Sir James Carmichael and Dr. de Hamel, of the Academy of Science of St. Petersburgh, proceeded to the South Foreland, where, in the presence of the other gentlemen, Mr. Wollaston tested the sub-marine wires with a galvanometer, and pronounced their insulation to be perfect.
The telegraphs used on this occasion have been those of the French government, invented by M. Foy, Henley’s magnetic, Reid’s double needle, and Brett’s printing telegraph. In spite of much knocking about and rough work, both on board and on shore, the instruments have all worked admirably The gentlemen connected with the Sub-marine Telegraph Company, who gave their aid on this occasion, were Mr. Crampton, C.E., Mr. Wollaston C.E., Mr. Statham, manager of the Gutta Percha Company, Mr. Branton, his assistant, Mr. Jacob Brett, to whom the concession was granted by the French government for establishing the telegraph, Mr. John Brett, and Sir James Carmichael, Bart, directors.
M. Alphonse Foy, the director of telegraphs in France, and Professor Jacobi, were also present during the first part, and Dr. de Hamel, of St Petersburgh, during the latter part of the work.
Messrs. Reid and Henley attended in charge of their respective telegraphic machines.
Much has been said of the foolhardiness of starting during the prevalence of the equinoctial gales and the period of the strongest tides to lay down the sub-marine cable. This, however, was inevitable as the company were under engagement to the French government to establish a communication between the two coasts by the 1st of October, and as the cable was not shipped on board the Blazer until the 24th of September, there was little time to carry out so novel and so difficult an undertaking.
The communication is now made, and when the short distance of gutta percha roping at Sangatte is replaced by a properly protected cable, it will, we trust, be as permanent as it is already proved to be perfect.
