The Story of the Atlantic TelegraphField, Henry M. (Henry Martyn)
History
The Story of the Atlantic Telegraph
Field, Henry M. (Henry Martyn)
Transatlantic cables
The method used by the electricians to discover a fault is one of such
delicacy and beauty as shows the marvellous perfection of the
instruments which science employs to learn the secrets of nature. The
galvanometer is an invention of Professor Thomson, by which "a ray of
light reflected from a tiny mirror suspended to a magnet travels along a
scale, and indicates the resistance to the passage of the current
through the cable by the deflection of the magnet, which is marked by
the course of this speck of light. If the light of the mirror travels
beyond the index, or out of bounds, an escape of the current is taking
place, and what is technically called a fault has occurred." Such was
the discovery on Monday morning. At a quarter past three o'clock the
electrician on duty saw the light suddenly glide to the end of the scale
and vanish.
Fortunately it was not a fatal injury. It did not prevent signalling
through the cable, and a message was at once sent back to the shore,
giving notice of the check that had been received. But the electric
current did not flow freely. There was a leak at some point of the line
which it would not be prudent to pass over. They were now seventy-three
miles from shore, having run out eighty-four miles of cable. The tests
of the electricians indicated the fault to be ten or a dozen miles from
the stern of the ship. The only safe course was to go back and get this
on board, and cut out the defective portion. It was a most ungrateful
operation thus to be undoing their own work, but there was no help for
it.
Such accidents had been anticipated, and before the Great Eastern left
England, she had been provided with machinery to be used in case of
necessity for picking up the cable. But this proved rather an unwieldy
affair. It was at the bow, and as the paying-out machine was at the
stern, the ship had to be got round, and the cable, which must first be
cut, had to be transferred from one end to the other. This was not an
easy matter. The Great Eastern was an eighth of a mile long, and to
carry the cable along her sides for this distance, and over her high
wheel-houses, was an operation at once tedious and difficult.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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