Mr. (afterward Sir Charles) Bright was appointed engineer-in-chief, with Mr. Wildman Whitehouse (who had become closely associated with the project) as electrician, while Mr. Cyrus Field became general manager.
It must not be supposed that because the capital was raised without great difficulty, and because the project had far-seeing supporters, that there was any lack of “croakers.” On the contrary, the prejudice against the line as a “mad scheme” ran perhaps even higher than in the case of most great and novel undertakings. The critics were many, and with our present knowledge it is difficult to recognize that many of the assertions and suggestions emanated from men of science as well as from eminent engineers and sailors, who, we should say nowadays, ought to have known better. For example, the late Prof. Sir G. B. Airy, F.R.S. (Astronomer Royal), announced to the world: (1) that “it was a mathematical impossibility to submerge a cable in safety at so great a depth”; and (2) that “if it were possible, no signals could be transmitted through so great a length.”
From the very outset of the project the engineer-in-chief (as soon as appointed) had to deal with wild and undeveloped criticisms and{44} suggestions, partly from “inventors,” who desired to reap personal benefit by the scheme, and amateurs in the art generally, all of which appear singularly ludicrous nowadays.
The fallacy most frequently introduced was, perhaps, that the cable would be suspended in the water at a certain depth. Naturally the pressure increases with the depth on all sides of a cable (or anything else) in its descent through the sea, but, as practically everything on earth is more compressible than water, it is obvious that the iron wire, yarn, gutta-percha, and copper conductor, forming the cable, must be more and more compressed as they descend. Thus the cable constantly increases its density, or specific gravity, in going down, while the equal bulk of the water surrounding it continues to have, practically speaking, very nearly the same specific gravity as at the surface. Without this valuable property of water, the hydraulic press would not exist.
The strange blunder here described was participated in by some of the most distinguished naval men. As an instance, even at a comparatively recent period, Captain Marryat, R.N., the famous nautical author, writes of the sea: “What a mine of wealth must lie buried in its sands. What riches lie entangled among its rocks, or remain suspended in its unfathomable gulf, where the compressed fluid is equal in gravity to that which it encircles.”[13]
To obviate this non-existent difficulty, it was gravely proposed to festoon the cable across, at a given maximum depth between buoys and{45} floats, or even parachutes—at which ships might call, hook on, and talk telegraphically to shore!
Others again proposed to apply gummed cotton to the outside of the cable in connection with the above burying system. The idea was that the gum (or glue) would gradually dissolve and so let the cable down “quietly”!
As an example of the crude notions prevailing in the mind of one gentleman with a proposed invention, to whom was shown an inch specimen of the cable, he remarked: “Now I understand how you stow it away on board. You cut it up into bits beforehand, and then join up the pieces as you lay.”
Some again absolutely went so far as to take out patents for converting the laying vessel into a huge factory, with a view to making the cable on board in one continuous length, and submerging it during the process!
Finally, one naval expert assured the company that “no other machinery for paying out was necessary than a handspike to stop the egress of the cable.{46}”