became evident that the internal copper wire must have snapped from the strain whilst the cable was paying out, the two ends, however, being brought together again when at the bottom of the sea by the elasticity of its sheath.
From the 5th of August to the 1st of September, England and America were on speaking terms with each other. Regular messages were not, however, attempted until the 18th of the former month, and at first the utterances of the cable were very feeble. The manipulators principally confined themselves to sending single letters of the alphabet and single words, Newfoundland continually informing Valentia that she could not understand, and urging her to “send slower,” and to “send something,” “please send something.” Newfoundland appeared to be able to converse much more fluently than her Irish sister. Among the more curious messages sent was one from Valentia. It appears that the keys of a cupboard in which some of the electrical apparatus was stowed were missing, and the question of where they were placed was asked and answered in a few minutes across the breadth of the Atlantic. The only practical use to which the wire was ever put was the transmission of a message from the Horse Guards, countermanding the embarkation of some troops. The conversation went on in a hesitating, half unintelligible way, until the 13th, when a message of some length was received, and on the 16th the Queen’s memorable message of greeting to the President was carried across. All New York of course went wild, and a furor was excited throughout the States by the directors, which England viewed with wonder, but which those in the secret perfectly understood. Then came the President’s reply, and the currents were reported to come much stronger. It must be remembered, however, that increased battery power was continually being applied, and there can be little doubt that the forcing of the messages through the disabled wire materially aided in its final destruction.
The conversation was carried on between the two countries, with many interruptions, until the 1st of September, when the following broken message was received at Newfoundland: “C. W. Field, New York. Please inform American Government we are now in a position to do best to forward—” Here, unfortunately, the cable became dumb for ever, and refused to finish the end of the sentence—“government messages to England.”
As we have said before, the current appeared to flow much more freely from America to Ireland than vice versâ; for, on comparing the number of messages which passed between the two countries, we find that whilst America sent us, in the twenty-three days, two hundred and seventy-one messages, containing 13,968 letters, Ireland could only forward in twenty days one hundred and twenty-nine messages, containing 7,253 words. Thus Newfoundland was nearly twice as voluble a Valentia.
Many attempts have been made to raise and repair the cable; but, owing to its very light construction, the oxidation of the very fine wire in which it is enveloped, and the great depth from which it has to be lifted, it has invariably broken. Pieces will perhaps be recovered from time to time; but the only use of all that remains from the splendid fortune thus wilfully cast into the sea, in spite of all the warnings of competent electricians, will be to make gutta-percha dolls—the destination of the cores of all worn-out cables.
And perhaps it is quite as well that its chronic misery was thus finally extinguished, as it is pretty clear that in its wounded condition the Atlantic Telegraph never could have been a commercial success. The transmission of the Queen’s message to the President struck the whole civilised world with astonishment at the triumph which had been obtained; but the world remained in entire ignorance of the fact that those few fine phrases took no less than sixteen hours to transmit, owing to the pauses and many repetitions which occurred.
One would think that 2500 miles of ocean would prove an obstacle to personal altercations, but this appears not to be the case. Telegraphic clerks, we are told, are very apt to quarrel with each other if messages are not sent correctly. Mr. Varley, the electrician of the Telegraph Company, says that telegraph work causes great nervous irritation. “If,” says he, “a clerk be thoughtless and do not key very accurately, and so cause one or two words in a message to come indistinctly, the clerk at the distant end, after this has been repeated two or three times, will frequently become so excited as to refuse to work; quarrelling commences, which ends frequently in serious delay to the working of the line.” Considering the dilapidated condition of the Atlantic cable, we may consider it a mercy that a fresh source of quarrel has not been thus mechanically produced between England and the United States. We do not want the relations of the two countries to be further involved by the irritability of telegraphic clerks. Another cause of delay which takes place in telegraphing through such great lengths of water as that which the Atlantic cable had to traverse, is the retardation which takes place in the current through the charged condition of the wire. To use the words of the report of the Submarine Telegraph Committee: “When a metallic wire is enveloped by a coating of some insulating substance, as gutta-percha or india-rubber, and is then surrounded by water or damp earth, the system becomes exactly analogous to a Leyden jar or coated pane; the insulated covering represents the glass, the copper wire the inner metallic coating, and the water or moist earth the external coating. The electricity with which the wire is charged, by bringing the pole of an active battery in contact with it, acts by induction on the opposite electricity of the surrounding medium, which in its turn reacts on the electricity of the wire, drawing more from the source, and a considerable accumulation is thereby occasioned, which is greater in proportion to the thinness of the insulating covering.” Thus it will be seen that in any case telegraphic communication between us and America must be much slower than it would be by a land line, where the same impediment to the transmission of the current would not exist. When the Atlantic submarine cable was defunct, the electricians held an inquest upon its remains,