The cable (Fig. 8) was then finally drawn through another mixture of tar. Its weight in air was 1 ton per N.M., and in water only 13.4 hundredweight, bearing a strain of 3 tons 5 hundredweight before breaking—equivalent to nearly five miles of its weight in water.
For each end approaching the shore, the sheathing ([see Fig. 9]) consisted of twelve wires of No. 0 gauge, making a total weight of about nine tons to the mile. This type was adopted for the first ten miles from the Irish coast, and for fifteen miles from the landing at Newfoundland,{50} at both of which localities rocks had been found to abound plentifully—so much so that the armor was insufficient, and present practise provides double the weight under similar conditions.