Heroes of the Telegraph/Chapter 4

But before it reached the Red Sea the cable had broken down, and the instrument was returned dismantled, to be superseded at length by the siphon recorder, in which the marking point is a fine glass siphon emitting ink, and the moving body a light coil of wire hung between the poles of a magnet. The following year, however, he was introduced to Mr. Cyrus Field, of New York, a wealthy merchant, who had just returned from a six months' tour in South America. St. John's was an Atlantic port, and it seemed to him that the passage of news between America and Europe could thus be shortened by forty-eight hours. The accuracy of Thomson's law was disputed in 1856 by Dr. Edward O. Wildman Whitehouse, the electrician of the Atlantic Telegraph Company, who had misinterpreted the results of his own experiments. One of the examiners is said to have declared that he was unworthy to cut Thomson's pencils. Bright was member of parliament for Greenwich in the liberal interest from 1865 to 1868, and was one of the British delegates to the Paris exhibition in 1881 ; for his services he was granted by the French government the legion of honour.

Bishop Mullock, head of the Roman Catholic Church in Newfoundland, was lying becalmed in his yacht one day in sight of Cape Breton Island, and began to dream of a plan for uniting his savage diocese to the mainland by a line of telegraph through the forest from St. John's to Cape Ray, and cables across the mouth of the St. Lawrence from Cape Ray to Nova Scotia. A good insulator to cover the wire and prevent the electricity from leaking into the water was requisite for the success of a long submarine line. His experiments convinced him of the practicability of an electric submarine cable connexion between Ireland and America; and having in 1855 already discussed the question with Cyrus Field, who with J. W. Brett controlled the Newfoundland Telegraph Company on the other side of the ocean, Bright organized with them the Atlantic Telegraph Company in 1856 for the purpose of carrying out the idea, himself becoming engineer-in-chief. After Cooke and Wheatstone had introduced their working telegraph in 1839; the idea of a submarine line across the Atlantic Ocean began to dawn on the minds of men as a possible triumph of the future.

Faraday and Wheatstone soon discovered its merits as an insulator, and in 1845 the latter suggested that it should be employed to cover the wire which it was proposed to lay from Dover to Calais. Now the electricity sent into this wire induces electricity of an opposite kind to itself in the sea-water outside, and the attraction set up between these two kinds 'holds back' the current in the wire, and retards its passage to the receiving station. The merit of this receiving instrument is, that it indicates with extreme sensibility all the variations of the current in the cable, so that, instead of having to wait until each signal wave sent into the cable has travelled to the receiving end before sending another, a series of waves may be sent after each other in rapid succession. At a receiving station the current coming in from the cable has simply to be passed through the coil of the 'speaker' before it is sent into the ground, and the wandering light spot on the screen faithfully represents all its variations to the clerk, who, looking on, interprets these, and cries out the message word by word. In May, 1853, England was joined to Holland by a cable across the North Sea, from Orfordness to the Hague.

Thomson became a man of public note in connection with the laying of the first Atlantic cable. The Atlantic cable was a theme of inspiration for innumerable sermons and a prodigious quantity of doggerel. Next summer a steamboat was fitted out for the purpose, and the cable was submerged. Next morning this pioneer line was broken down at a point about 200 Yards from Cape Grisnez, and it turned out that a Boulogne fisherman had raised it on his trawl and cut a piece away, thinking he had found a rare species of tangle with gold in its heart. Before the storm was itself felt, the delicate glass pen became agitated and disturbed, the frail blue line broken and irregular. The route she was to follow was marked by a line of buoys and flags. About the same time a similar plan occurred to Mr. F. N. Gisborne, a telegraph engineer in Nova Scotia. The moving body must be quite free to follow the undulations of the current, and at the same time must record its motions by some indelible mark.

If you beloved this article therefore you would like to be given more info relating to what is electric cable kindly visit the web site.