The Battery and the Boiler: Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables. Robert Michael Ballantyne
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time Robin caught a rock with both hands and held on. Slowly, while almost choked with the water that splashed up into his face, he worked his right knee into a crevice, then made a wild grasp with the left hand at a higher projection of the rock. At the same moment his left foot struck the bottom. Another effort and he was out of danger, but it was several minutes ere he succeeded in dragging Madge from the hissing water of the shallows to the green sward above, and after this was accomplished he found it almost impossible to tear himself from the grasp of the now unconscious girl.
At first poor Robin thought that his companion was dead, but by degrees consciousness returned, and at last she was able to rise and walk.
Drenched, dishevelled, and depressed, these unfortunate electricians returned home.
Of course they were received with mingled joy and reproof. Of course, also, they were forbidden to go near the pool again—though this prohibition was afterwards removed, and our hero ultimately became a first-rate swimmer and diver.
Thus was frustrated the laying of the first submarine cable between England and Denmark!
Chapter Five.
Prospects of Real Cable-Laying—Robin meets with his First Electrical Acquaintances
Circumstances require that we should shift the scene and the date pretty frequently in this tale. We solicit the reader’s attendance at an office in London.
The office is dingy. Many offices are so. Two clerks are sitting in it making faces at each other across their desk. They are not lunatics. They are not imbeciles or idlers. On the contrary, they have frequent spells of work that might throw the toils of an Arab ass into the shade. They are fine strapping young fellows, with pent-up energies equal to anything, but afflicted with occasional periods of having nothing particular to do. These two have been sitting all morning in busy idleness. Their muscular and nervous systems rebelling, have induced much fidgeting and many wry faces. Being original, they have turned their sorrows into a game, and their little game at present is to see which can make a face so hideous that the other shall be compelled to laugh! We have deep sympathy with clerks. We have been a clerk, and know what it is to have the fires of Vesuvius raging within, while under the necessity of exhibiting the cool aspect of Spitzbergen without.
But these clerks were not utterly miserable. On the contrary, they were, to use one of their own familiar phrases, rather jolly than otherwise. Evening was before them in far-off but attainable perspective. Home, lawn-tennis, in connection with bright eyes and pretty faces, would compensate for the labours of the day and let off the steam. They were deep in their game when a rap at the door brought their faces suddenly to a state of nature.
“Come in,” said the first clerk.
“And wipe your feet,” murmured the second, in a low tone.
A gentleman, with an earnest countenance, entered.
“Is Mr Lowstoft in his office?”
“He is, sir,” said the first clerk, descending from his perch with an air of good-will, and requesting the visitor’s name and business.
The visitor handed his card, on which the name Cyrus Field was written, and the clerk, observing it, admitted the owner at once to the inner sanctum where Mr Lowstoft transacted business.
“There’s something up,” murmured the clerk, with a mysterious look at his comrade, on resuming his perch.
“Time’s up, or nearly so,” replied the comrade, with an anxious look at the clock:
“The witching hour which sets us free
To saunter home and have our tea—
“approaches.”
“D’you know that that is Cyrus Field?” said the first clerk.
“And who is Cyrus Field?” demanded the second clerk.
“O ignoramus! Thy name is Bob, and thou art not worth a ‘bob’—miserable snob! Don’t you know that Cyrus Field is the man who brought about the laying of the great Atlantic Cable in 1858?”
“No, most learned Fred, I did not know that, but I am very glad to know it now. Moreover, I know nothing whatever about cables—Atlantic or otherwise. I am as blind as a bat, as ignorant as a bigot, as empty as a soap-bubble, and as wise as Solomon, because I’m willing to be taught.”
“What a delicious subject to work upon!” said Fred.
“Well then, work away,” returned Bob; “suppose you give me a discourse on Cables. But, I say—be merciful. Don’t overdo it, Frederick. Remember that my capacity is feeble.”
“I’ll be careful, Bob.—Well then, you must know that from the year 1840 submarine cables had been tried and laid, and worked with more or less success, in various parts of the world. Sir W. O’Shaughnessy, I believe, began it. Irishmen are frequently at the root of mischief! Anyhow, he, being Superintendent of Electric Telegraphs in India in 1839, hauled an insulated wire across the Hooghly at Calcutta, and produced what they call ‘electrical phenomena’ at the other side of the river. In 1840 Mr Wheatstone brought before the House of Commons the project of a cable from Dover to Calais. In 1842 Professor Morse of America laid a cable in New York harbour, and another across the canal at Washington. He also suggested the possibility of laying a cable across the Atlantic Ocean. In 1846 Colonel Colt, of revolver notoriety, and Mr Robinson, laid a wire from New York to Brooklyn, and from Long Island to Correy Island. In 1849—”
“I say, Fred,” interrupted Bob, with an anxious look, “you are a walking dictionary of dates. Haydn was nothing to you. But—couldn’t you give it me without dates? I’ve got no head for dates; never could stomach them—except when fresh off the palm-tree. Don’t you think that a lecture without dates would be pleasantly original as well as instructive?”
“No, Bob, I don’t, and I won’t be guilty of any such gross innovation on time-honoured custom. You must swallow my dates whether you like them or not. In 1849, I say, a Mr Walker—”
“Any relation to Hookey?”
“No, sir, none whatever—he laid a wire from Folkestone to a steamer two miles off the shore, and sent messages to it. At last, in 1851. Mr Brett laid down and successfully wrought the cable between Dover and Calais which had been suggested by Wheatstone eleven years before. It is true it did not work long, but this may be said to have been the beginning of submarine telegraphy, which, you see, like your own education, Bob, has been a thing of slow growth.”
“Have you done with dates, now, my learned friend?” asked Bob, attempting to balance a ruler on the point of his nose.
“Not quite, my ignorant chum, but nearly. That same year—1851, remember—a Mr Frederick N. Gisborne, an English electrician, made the first attempt to connect Newfoundland with the American continent by cable. He also started a company to facilitate intercourse between America and ireland by means of steamers and telegraph-cables. Gisborne was very energetic and successful, but got into pecuniary difficulties, and went to New York to raise the wind. There he met with Cyrus Field, who took the matter up with tremendous enthusiasm. He expanded Gisborne’s idea, and resolved to get up a company to connect Newfoundland with Ireland by electric cable. Field was rich and influential, and ultimately successful—”
“Ah! would that you and I were rich, Fred,” interrupted Bob, as he let fall the ruler with a crash on the red-ink bottle, and overturned it; “but go on, Fred, I’m getting interested; pardon the interruption, and never mind the ink, I’ll swab it up.—He was successful, was he?”
“Yes, he was; eminently so. He first of all roused his friends in the States, and got up, in 1856, the ‘New York, Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company,’ which carried a line of telegraph through the British Provinces, and across the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to Saint John’s, Newfoundland—more than 1000 miles—at a cost of about 500,000 pounds. Then he came over to England and roused the British Lion, with whose aid he started the ‘Atlantic Telegraph Company,’ and fairly began the work, backed by such men as Brett, Bidden, Stephenson, Brunel, Glass, Eliot, Morse, Bright, Whitehouse,