Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

EARLY ATLANTIC CABLES. 365 Atlantic cable, the engineering department was far ahead of the electrical. The cable was successfully laid—mechanically good, but electrically bad. Its electrical failure was, of course, bound to spell commercial failure —no matter how great its successful engineer- ing feat.” COMMERCIAL SUCCESS.* The 1865 Cable. Though their cable had long ceased to work, the Atlantic Telegraph Company was kept alive throughout by those most immediately concerned, who, after the recent successes in submarine telegraphy, began, in 18G4, to they applauded the project as one of the grandest enterprises ever undertaken by man ; but when called upon to back up their views by something more concrete, not a man would put up a dollar ! Ultimately, as before, the cost of the new cable was subscribed out of British pockets. Sir Thomas Brassey, followed by Mr. (after- wards Sir John) Pender, set the example in this particular. The latter was at the time chairman, and the former an ordinary director, of the Telegraph Construction and Mainten- ance Company, which had just been, formed to combine the business of the Gutta-Percha Company with that of Messrs. Glass, Elliot, and Company. Fig. 8.—ATLANTIC CABLE OF 1865 I MAIN TYPE. make fresh efforts to rekindle the interest previously entertained in the project. It took a considerable time, however, to raise all the capital required for another Atlantic cable. Though embarking on a regular campaign in the main American cities, Mr. Cyrus Field met with as little success in securing support in the States as he had with the previous line. The “ solid men of Boston ” went so far as to pass a scries of resolutions in which * Several important cables had been laid and worked suc- cessfully during the seven years elapsing since the failure of the first Atlantic line. These secured communication with India, Gibraltar, Malta, Alexandria, and certain islands in the Mediterranean, the engineers and electricians to whom credit is due being Sir Charles Bright, the brothers Werner and William Siemens, Mr. Lionel Gisborne, Mr. H. C. Forde, Mr. R. S. Newall, and Mr. (afterwards Sir Samuel) Canning. These works followed after a complete system of electrical units and testing had been introduced at the instigation of Messrs. Bright and Clark, which had a great deal to do with the subsequent electrical and commercial successes. The capital eventually raised for the enter- prise by the Atlantic Telegraph Company was £600,000 ; and in taking a considerable proportion of the shares as payment, the Telegraph Construction Company secured the contract for the entire work. The cable was an expensive one as com- pared with that of 1857-8. The actual type adopted on the recommendation of the con- sulting engineers, Sir Charles Bright and Mr. Latimer Clark, The New Cable, was much the same in re- spect to the conductor and insulator—300 lbs. copper to 400 lbs. gutta-percha per nautical mile—as that which the former had suggested for the previous line. Each sheathing wire was enveloped in a serving of Manila yarn, the main object of the latter being to reduce the specific gravity