The Story of the Atlantic Telegraph

by Henry M. Field

Though the Great Eastern was still lying in the little harbor of Heart's Content, casting her mighty shadow on its tranquil waters, she was not "content" with her amazing victory, but sighed for another greater still. Though she had done enough to be laid up for a year, still she had one more test of her prowess—to recover the cable of 1865, which had been lost in the middle of the Atlantic. So eager were all for this second trial of their strength, that in less than five days two of the ships—the Albany and the Terrible—the vanguard of the telegraphic fleet, were on their way back to mid-ocean. Though it was only Friday, the 27th of July, that they reached land, they left early Wednesday morning, the first day of August. The Great Eastern was detained a week longer. She had to lay in immense supplies of coal. Anticipating this want, six ships had been despatched from Cardiff, in Wales, weeks before, to await the arrival of the fleet. One of these foundered at sea; the others arrived out safely, and hardly had the Great Eastern cast anchor before they were alongside, ready to fill her bunkers. So ample was the provision, that, when she went to sea a few days after, she had nearly eight thousand tons of coal on board.

At the same time she had to receive some six hundred miles of the cable of 1865, which had been shipped from England in the Medway. The latter was now brought alongside, and the whole was transferred into the main tank of the Great Eastern, from which it was to be paid out in case the lost end were recovered.

At length all these preparations were completed, and on Thursday, the 9th of August, the Great Eastern and the Medway put to sea. The Governor of Newfoundland, who had come around from St. John's and been received with the honors due his rank, accompanied them in the Lily down the broad expanse of Trinity Bay, and then bore away for St. John's while the Great Eastern and Medway kept on their course to join their companions in the middle of the Atlantic. They had a little over six hundred miles to run to the "fishing ground," and made it in three days. On Sunday noon they came in sight of the appointed rendezvous, and soon with glasses made out the Albany and the Terrible, which had arrived a week before and placed buoys to mark the line of the cable, and then, like giant sea-birds with folded wings, sat watching their prey. The sea was running high, so that boats could not come off, but the Albany signalled that she had not toiled for nothing; that she had once hooked the cable, but lost it in rough weather. The history of this first attempt, though brief, was cheering.

When the Albany left Heart's Content, Captain Moriarty went in her. He had been in the Great Eastern the year before, and saw where the cable went down, and had had his eye on the spot ever since. He claimed, with Captain Anderson, that he could go straight to it and place the ship within half a mile of where it disappeared. At this old sailors shook their heads, and said, "They'd like to see him do it;" "No man could come within two or three miles of any given place in the ocean." Yet the result proved the exactness of his observations. With unerring eye he went straight to the spot, and set his buoys as exactly as a fisherman sets his nets.

In the Albany, also, had gone Mr. Temple, of Mr. Canning's staff. The ship had been fitted up with a complete set of buoys and apparatus for grappling; and he was full of ambition to recover the cable before the Great Eastern should come up. In this he had nearly proved successful. They had caught it once, and raised it a few hundred fathoms from the bottom, and buoyed it, but rough weather came on and tore away the buoy, so that the cable went down again, carrying two miles of rope.

This was a disappointment, but still, as their first attempt was only a "feeler," the result was encouraging. It showed that they had found the right place; that the cable was there; that it had not run away nor been floated off by those under-currents that exist in the imagination of some wise men of the sea; nor that it was so imbedded in the ooze of the deep as to be beyond reach or recovery. All this was cheering, but as it promised to be a more difficult job than they had supposed, they were glad when the Great Eastern hove in sight that Sunday noon.

The next morning Captain Moriarty and Mr. Temple came on board, and after reporting their experience, the chief officers of the Expedition held a council of war before opening the campaign. The fleet was all together, the weather was favorable, and it was determined at once to proceed to business.

As the attempt is now to be renewed on a grand scale, the reader may wish some further details of the means employed to insure success. As nothing in this whole enterprise has excited such astonishment, nothing merits a more careful history. When it was first proposed to drag the bottom of the Atlantic for a cable lost in waters two and a half miles deep, the project was so daring that it seemed to be almost a war of the Titans upon the gods. Yet never was anything undertaken less in the spirit of reckless desperation. The cable was recovered, as a city is taken by siege—by slow approaches, and the sure and inevitable result of mathematical calculation. Every point was studied beforehand—the position of the broken end, the depth of the ocean, the length of rope needed to reach the bottom, and the strength required to lift the enormous weight. To find the place was a simple question of nautical astronomy—a calculation of latitude and longitude. It seemed providential that, when the cable broke on the second of August, 1865, it was a few minutes after noon; the sun was shining brightly, and they had just taken a perfect observation. This made it much easier to go back to the place again. The waters were very deep, but that they could touch bottom, and even grapple the cable, was proved by the experiments of the year before. But could any power be applied which should lift it without breaking, and bring it safely on board? This was a simple question of mechanics. Prof. Thomson had made a calculation that in raising the cable from a depth of two and a half miles, there would be about ten miles of its length suspended in the water. Of course, it was a very nice matter to graduate the strain so as not to break the cable. For this it had been suggested that two or three ships should grapple it at once, and lifting it together, ease the strain on any one point—a method of meeting the danger that was finally adopted with success.

With such preparations, let us see how all this science and seamanship and engineering are applied. The ships are now all together in the middle of the Atlantic. The first point is achieved. They have found the place where the broken cable lies—they have laid their hands on the bottom of the ocean and "felt of it," and know that it is there. The next thing is to draw a line over it, to mark its course, for in fogs and dark nights it cannot be traced by observations. The watery line is therefore marked by a series of buoys a few miles apart, which are held in position by heavy mushroom-anchors, let down to the bottom by a huge buoy-rope, which is fastened at the top by a heavy chain. Each buoy is numbered, and has on the top a long staff with a flag, and a black ball over it, which can be seen at a distance. Thus the ships, ranging around in a circuit of many miles, can keep in sight this chain of sentinels. The buoy which marks the spot where they wish to grapple has also a lantern placed upon it at night, which gleams afar upon the ocean. Having thus fixed their bearings, the Great Eastern stands off, north or south according to the wind or current, three or four miles from where the cable lies, and then, casting over the grapnel, drifts slowly down upon the line, as ships going into action reef their sails, and drift under the enemy's guns.

The "fishing-tackle" is on a gigantic scale. The "hooks," or grapnels, are huge weapons armed with teeth, like Titanic harpoons to be plunged into this submarine monster. The "fishing-line" is a rope six and a half inches round, and made of twisted hemp and iron, consisting of forty-nine galvanized wires, each bound with manilla, the whole capable of bearing a strain of thirty tons. Of this heavy rope there are twenty miles on board the ships, the Albany carrying five, and the Great Eastern and the Medway seven and a half miles each. Of course it is not the easiest thing in the world to handle such a rope. But it is paid out by machinery, passing over a drum; and the engine works so smoothly, that it runs out as easily as ever a fisherman's line was reeled off into the sea. As it goes out freely, the strain increases every moment. The rope is so ponderous, that the weight mounts up very fast, so that by the time it is two thousand fathoms down, the strain is equal to six or seven tons. The tension of course is very great, and not unattended with danger. What if the rope should break? If it should snap on board, it would go into the sea like a cannon-shot. Such was the tension on the long line, that once when the splice between the grapnel-rope and the buoy-rope "drew," the end passed along the wheels with terrific velocity, and flying in the air over the bow, plunged into the sea. But the rope is well made, and holds firmly an enormous weight. It takes about two hours for the grapnel to reach the bottom, but they can tell when it strikes. The strain eases up, and then, as the ship drifts, it is easy to see that it is not dragging through the water, but over the ground. "I often went to the bow," says Mr. Field, "and sat on the rope, and could tell by the quiver that the grapnel was dragging on the bottom two miles under us."