Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

370 ENGINEERING WONDERS OF THE WORLD. Fig. 14.—A FOUL IN CABLE TANK WHILE PAYING OUT. mentary duties from accompanying the ex- pedition, but his partner, Mr. Latimer Clark, took up quarters at Valencia to personally represent the firm as consulting engineers ; whilst Mr. J. C. Laws and Mr. Richard Collett were respectively aboard and ashore (at the Newfoundland end) on the same behalf. Then, again, Mr. (afterwards Sir Richard) Glass, the managing director of the Telegraph Construction Company, went to Valencia in order to give any instructions through the cable to his (the contractor’s) staff on board ; whilst Mr. Gooch and Mr. Field once more took passage on the big ship in their in- dividual interests. The cable fleet having duly assembled at the starting-point, the William Cory (commonly called the Dirty Billy) landed the shore end, and then laid twenty-seven _ , , _ , miles of the intermediate type cable. The Great Eastern thereupon took charge of the end; and, having spliced up with her cable on board, started paying out across the Atlantic. Very soon there was a foul in the tank, due to broken wires catching neighbouring turns and flakes, thus drawing up a whole bundle of cable in an apparently inextricable mass of kinks and twists quite close to the brake drum. The ship was, however, promptly got to a standstill, and all hands set to unravel- ling the tangle. With a cer- tain amount of luck, no evil results attended this mishap ; and, after the wires had been straightened out as far as possible, paying out was re- sumed. Fourteen days after starting the Great Eastern arrived off Heart’s Content, Trinity Bay, where the Medway joined on and landed the shore end, thereby bringing to a successful conclusion the laying of the 1866 Atlantic cable, the length laid being 1,852 nautical miles. ' landed. 1 rom an engineering stand- point, however, this was a repetition of the work that had been effected eight years previously. It was then accomplished with about the same number of mishaps, though with no applicable experience to go upon ; and, on the other hand, with the disadvan- tage of laying the cable from two separate ships instead of one. Recovery and Completion of the 1865 Cable. It now remained to find the end of the previously lost cable—some 600 miles from Newfoundland—to splice on the new cable, and thus finish the work so unfortunately interrupted the year before. Having reim- bursed herself with coal, the Great Eastern again put to sea from the other side, to- gether with the rest of the fleet, and arrived on the scene of action on August 12th. The plan adopted was for the Great Eastern,