The Story of the Atlantic Telegraph

"The old system is with a small line, marked at distances of one hundred fathoms, and with a weight of thirty or fifty pounds, the depth being told by the length of line run out. This is, of course, the most natural apparatus that suggests itself, and has been in use from the earliest ages. Experience has given directions for its use, avoiding some of the grosser causes of error from driftage and other causes. Yet its success in immense ocean depths is problematical, and a problem decided in the negative by many of the first scientific authorities at home and abroad. In the mechanical improvements of the last half-century substitutes for this simple but rather uncertain method began to be devised. It was proposed to ascertain the depth by the amount of pressure, or by explosions under water, with other equally impracticable plans. At last was noticed the perfect regularity of the movements of a spirally-shaped wheel, on being drawn through the water. Experiments proved that this regularity, when unaffected by other causes, could be relied on with perfect accuracy, and that an arrangement of cog-wheels would register its revolutions with mathematical precision. Very soon it came in use as a ship's log. So perfect was their precision, that they were even introduced in scientific surveys. Base lines, where the nicest accuracy is required, were run with them, and we have the highest authority of the Royal Navy for believing that they never failed. At this point it was proposed to apply them in a perpendicular as well as in a horizontal motion through the water. Massey's apparatus promising to solve those problems of submarine geography left unsolved by the old method of obtaining depth with a simple line and sinker, and this more especially as some causes of error, considerable on the surface, disappear in the still water below."

To make our knowledge of the sea complete, one thing more was wanting – a method not only of reaching the bottom, but of laying hold of it, and bringing it up to the light of day. This was now to be supplied.

It is to the inventive genius of a lieutenant of the United States navy, Mr. J. M. Brooke, that the world owes the means of finding out what is at the bottom of the sea. This is by a very simple contrivance, by which the heavy weight, used to sink the measuring line, is detached as soon as it strikes bottom, leaving the line free so that it can be drawn up lightly and quickly to the surface without danger of breaking. Below the weight, and driven by it into the ooze, is a rod, in which is an open valve, that now closes with a spring, by which it catches a cupful of the soil, which is thus brought up to the surface, to be placed under the microscope, and be subjected to the sharp eye of science. With this simple instrument the skilful seaman explores the bottom of the ocean by literally feeling over it. With a long line he dives to the very lowest depths, while the clasp at the end of it is like the tip of the elephant's trunk, serving as a delicate finger with which he picks up sand and shells that lie strewn on the floor of the deep. What important conclusions are derived from this inspection of the bottom of the sea, is well stated by Lieutenant Maury in the letter already quoted.

In happy concurrence with this, as an additional preparation, a partial survey of the Atlantic had been made the very year before this enterprise was begun, in 1853. Lieutenant Berryman was the first who applied this new method of taking deep-sea soundings to that part of the Atlantic lying between Newfoundland and Ireland, with results most surprising and satisfactory. But to remove all doubt it seemed desirable to have a fresh survey. To obtain this, Mr. Field went to Washington and applied to the Government in behalf of the Company for a second expedition.

The request was granted, and the Arctic, under command of the same gallant Lieutenant Berryman, was assigned to this service. He sailed from New York on the eighteenth of July, 1856, and the very next day Mr. Field left on the Baltic for England, to organize the Atlantic Telegraph Company. The Arctic proceeded to St. John's, and thence with a clear eye and a steady hand, this true sailor went "sounding on his dim and perilous way" across the deep. In about three weeks he made the coast of Ireland, having carried his survey along the great circle arc, which the telegraph was to follow as the nearest path from the old world to the new. The result fully confirmed his belief of the existence of a great plateau underneath the ocean, extending all the way from one hemisphere to the other.

I cannot take leave of the name of this gallant officer, who rendered such services to science and to his country, without a word of tribute to his memory. Lieutenant Berryman is in his grave. He died in the navy of his country, worn out by his devotion to her service. When the great civil war broke out, he was placed in a position most painful to a man of large heart, who loved at once his country and the state in which he was born. He was a Southerner, a native of Winchester, Va., and was assigned to duty in the South. At the first attack on Southern forts and arsenals, he was in command of the Wyandotte, in the harbor of Pensacola, in Florida. His officers, who were nearly all Southerners, were in secret sympathy with the rebellion. All the influences around him, both on ship and on shore, were such as might have seduced a weaker man from his loyalty. But, to his honor, he never hesitated for a moment. He stood firm and loyal to his flag. Not knowing whom to trust, he had to keep watch day and night against surprise and treachery. It was the testimony of Lieutenant Slemmer, then in command of Fort Pickens, that but for the ceaseless exertions of Lieutenant Berryman not only the ship but the fort would have been lost. But this service to his country cost him his life. His constant exertions brought on a brain fever, of which he died. His wife, also a native of Winchester, when the war came near her early home, removed to Baltimore, saying that "she would not live under any other flag than that under which her husband had lived and died."

It was to the honor of the American navy, to have led the way in these deep-sea soundings. But after this second voyage of exploration, Mr. Field applied to the British Admiralty, "to make what further soundings might be necessary between Ireland and Newfoundland, and to verify those made by Lieutenant Berryman." It was in response to this application that the Government sent out the following year a vessel to make still another survey of the same ocean-path. This was the steamer Cyclops, which was placed under Lieutenant Commander Joseph Dayman, of the British navy, an officer who had been with Captain Sir James Ross when he made his deep-sea soundings in the South Atlantic in 1840, where he attained a depth of twenty-six hundred and sixty-seven fathoms; and who by his intelligence and zeal, was admirably fitted for the work. To speak now of this third survey, is anticipating in time. But it will serve the purpose of unity and clearness in the narrative, to include all these deep-sea soundings in one chapter. He was directed to proceed to the harbor of Valentia in Ireland, and thence to follow, as nearly as possible, along the arc of a great circle to Newfoundland. "The soundings for the first few miles from the coast should be frequent, decreasing as you draw off shore."

These orders were thoroughly executed. Every pains was taken to make the information obtained precise and exact. Whenever a sounding was to be taken, the ship was hove to, and the bow kept as nearly as possible in the same spot, so that the line might descend perpendicularly. This was repeated every few miles until they had got far out into the Atlantic, where the general equality of the depths rendered it necessary to cast the line only every twenty or thirty miles. Thus the survey was made complete, and the results obtained were of the greatest value in determining the physical geography of the sea.

The conclusions of Commander Dayman confirmed in general those of Lieutenant Berryman, though in comparing the charts prepared by the two, we observe some differences which ought to be noticed. Both agree as to the general character of the bottom of the ocean along this latitude – that it is a vast plain, like the steppes of Siberia. Yet on the chart of Dayman the floor of the sea seems not such a dead level as on that of Berryman. (This may be partly owing to a difference of route, as Dayman passed a little to the north of the track of Berryman.) There are more unequal depths, which in the small space of a chart, appear like hills and valleys. Yet when we consider the wide distances passed over, these inequalities seem not greater than the undulations on our Western prairies. "This space," says Dayman, "has been named by Maury the telegraphic plateau, and although by multiplying the soundings upon it, we have depths ranging from fourteen hundred and fifty to twenty-four hundred fathoms, these are comparatively small inequalities in its surface, and present no new difficulty to the project of laying the cable across the ocean. Their importance vanishes when the extent of the space over which they are distributed (thirty degrees of longitude) is considered."

According to Berryman and Dayman both, the ocean in its deepest part on this plateau, measured but two thousand and three or four hundred fathoms, or about fourteen thousand feet – a depth of but little over two and a half miles. This is not great, compared with the enormous depths in other parts of the Atlantic;8 yet that it is something may be realized from the fact that if the Peak of Teneriffe were here "cast into the sea," it would sink out of sight, island, mountain and all, while even the lofty head of Mont Blanc would be lifted but a few hundred feet above the waves.

The only exception to this uniform depth, lies about two hundred miles off the coast of Ireland, where within a space of about a dozen miles, the depth sinks from five hundred and fifty to seventeen hundred and fifty fathoms! "In 14° 48' west," says Dayman, "we have five hundred and fifty fathoms rock, and in 15° 6' west we have seventeen hundred and fifty fathoms ooze. This is the greatest dip in the whole ocean."

"In little more than ten miles of distance a change of depth occurs, amounting to seventy-two hundred feet." This is indeed a tremendous plunge from the hard rock into the slime of the sea.

The same sharp declivity was noticed by Berryman, and has been observed in the several attempts to lay the cable. Thus in the second expedition of 1858, as the Agamemnon was approaching the coast of Ireland, we read in the report of her voyage: "About five o'clock in the evening, the steep submarine mountain which divides the telegraphic plateau from the Irish coast, was reached; and the sudden shallowing of the water had a very marked effect on the cable, causing the strain on, and the speed of it, to lessen every minute. A great deal of slack was paid out to allow for inequalities which might exist, though undiscovered by the sounding-line."

This submarine mountain was then regarded as the chief point of danger in the whole bed of the Atlantic, and as the principal source of anxiety in laying a cable across the ocean. Yet, after all, the ascent or descent of less than a mile and a half in ten miles, is not an impassable grade. More recent soundings reduce this still farther. Captain Hoskins, of the Royal Navy, afterwards made a more careful survey of this precipitous sea bottom, and with results much more favorable. The side of the mountain, it is now said, is not very much steeper than Holborn Hill in London, or Murray Hill in New York.9 But the best answer to fears on this point, is the fact that in 1857, 1858, and 1865, the cable passed over it without difficulty. In 1857 the Niagara was a hundred miles farther to sea, when the cable broke. In 1865 the strain was not increased more than a hundred pounds. In the final expedition, that of 1866, this declivity was passed over without difficulty or danger.

Next to the depth of the ocean, it was important to ascertain the nature of its bottom. What was it – a vast bed of rock, the iron-bound crust of the globe, hardened by internal fires, and which, bending as a vault over the still glowing centre of the earth, bore up on its mighty arches the weight of all the oceans? or was it mere sand like the sea-shore? or ooze as soft as that of a mill-pond? The pressure of a column of water two miles high would be equal to that of four hundred atmospheres. Would not this weight alone be enough to crush any substance that could reach that tremendous depth? These were questions which remained to be answered, but on which depended the possibility of laying a cable at the bottom of the Atlantic.

By the ingenious contrivance of Lieutenant Brooke, the problem was solved, for we got hold of fragments of the under-coating of the sea; and to our amazement, instead of finding the ocean bound round with thick ribs of granite, its inner lining was found to be soft as a silken vest. The soil brought up from the bottom was not even of the hardness of sand or gravel. It was mere ooze, like that of our rivers, and was as soft as the moss that clings to old, damp stones on the river's brink. At first it was thought by Lieutenant Berryman to be common clay, but being carefully preserved, and subjected to a powerful microscope, it was found to be composed of shells, too small to be discovered by the naked eye!

This was a revelation of the myriad forms of animated existence which fill the sea: a plenitude of life that is more wonderful by contrast. As Maury well puts it: "The ocean teems with life, we know. Of the four elements of the old philosophers – fire, earth, air, and water – perhaps the sea most of all abounds with living creatures. The space occupied on the surface of our planet by the different families of animals and their remains are inversely as the size of the individual. The smaller the animal, the greater the space occupied by his remains. Take the elephant and his remains, or a microscopic animal and his, and compare them. The contrast, as to space occupied, is as striking as that of the coral reef or island with the dimensions of the whale. The graveyard that would hold the corallines is larger than the graveyard that would hold the elephants."3

These little creatures, whose remains were thus found at the bottom of the ocean, probably did not live there, for there all is dark, and shells, like flowers, need the light and warmth of the all-reviving sun. It was their sepulchre, but not their dwelling-place. Probably they lived near the surface of the ocean, and after their short life, sunk to the tranquil waters below. What a work of life and death had been going on for ages in the depths of the sea! Myriads upon myriads, ever since the morning of creation, had been falling like snow-flakes, till their remains literally covered the bottom of the deep.

Equally significant was the fact that these shells were unbroken. Not only were they there, but preserved in a perfect form. Organisms the most minute and delicate, fragile as drooping flowers, had yet sunk and slept uninjured. The same power which watches over the fall of a sparrow had kept these frail and tender things, and after their brief existence, had laid them gently on the bosom of the mighty mother for their eternal rest.

The bearing of this discovery on the problem of a submarine telegraph was obvious. For it too was to lie on the ocean-bed, beside and among these relics that had so long been drifting down upon the watery plain. And if these tiny shells slept there unharmed, surely an iron chord might rest there in safety. There were no swift currents down there; no rushing waves agitated that sunless sea. There the waters moved not; and there might rest the great nerve that was to pass from continent to continent. And so far as injury from the surrounding elements was concerned, there it might remain, whispering the thoughts of successive generations of men, till the sea should give up its dead.

CHAPTER VI.

THE WORK BEGUN IN ENGLAND

Up to this time the Telegraph, which was destined to pass the sea, had been purely an American enterprise. It had been begun, and for over two years had been carried on, wholly by American capital. "Our little company," said Mr. Field ten years after, "raised and expended over a million and a quarter of dollars before an Englishman paid a single pound sterling." Mr. Brett was the first one to take a few shares. But this was not to the discredit of England, for the American public had done no better. Not a dollar had been raised this side the Atlantic, outside of the little circle in which the scheme had its origin. No stock or bonds were put upon the market; no man was asked for a subscription. If they wanted money, they drew their checks for it. At one time, indeed, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars of bonds were issued, but they were at once taken wholly by themselves. But, as the time was now come when the long-meditated attempt was to be made to carry the Telegraph across the ocean, it was fitting that Great Britain, whose shores it was to touch, should join in the work. Accordingly, in the summer of 1856, after finishing all that he could do in America, Mr. Field sailed with his family for England. The very day before he embarked, he had the pleasure to see his friend, Lieutenant Berryman, off on his second voyage to make soundings across the Atlantic.

In London he sought at once Mr. Brett, with whom in his two former visits to England he had already discussed his project, and found in him a hearty coöperator. As we go on with our story, it is a melancholy satisfaction to refer to one and another worker in this enterprise, who lived not to see its last and greatest triumph. Mr. Brett, like Berryman, is dead. But he did not go to his grave till after a life of usefulness and honor. He was one of the men of the new era – of the school of Stephenson and Brunel – who believed in the marvellous achievements yet to be wrought by human invention, turning to the service of man the wonders of scientific discovery. He was one of the first to see the boundless possibilities of the telegraph, and to believe that what had passed over the land might pass under the sea. He was the first to lay a cable across the British Channel, and thus to bring into instantaneous communication the two great capitals of Europe – an achievement which, though small compared with what has since been done, was then so marvellous, that the intelligence of its success was received with surprise and incredulity. Many could not and would not believe it. Even after messages were received in London from Paris, there were those who declared that it was an imposition on the public, with as much proud scorn as some a few years later scouted the very idea that a message had ever passed over the Atlantic Telegraph!

This friendship of Mr. Brett – both to the enterprise and to Mr. Field personally – remained to the last. In every voyage to England the latter found – however others doubted or despaired – that Mr. Brett was always the same – full of hope and confidence. In 1864, when they met in London, he was unshaken in faith, and urgent to have the great enterprise renewed. The triumph was not far off, but he was not to live to see it. But, though he passed away before the final victory, he did his part toward bringing it on, and no history of this great enterprise can overlook his eminent services.

To Mr. Brett, therefore, Mr. Field went first to consult in regard to his project of a telegraph across the ocean. This was a part of the design embraced in the original organization of the New York, Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company; and when Mr. Field went to England, he was empowered to receive subscriptions to that Company, so as to enlarge its capital, and thus include in one corporation the whole line from New York to London; or to organize a new company, which should lay a cable across the Atlantic, and there join the Newfoundland line.

But before an enterprise so vast and so new could be commended to the commercial public of Great Britain, there were many details to be settled. The mechanical and scientific problems already referred to, whether a cable could be laid across the ocean; and if so, whether it could be worked, were to be considered anew. The opinions of Lieutenant Maury and of Professor Morse were published in England, and arrested the attention of scientific men. But John Bull is slow of belief, and asked for more evidence. The thing was too vast to be undertaken rashly. As yet there was no experience to decide the possibility of a telegraph across the ocean. The longest line which had been laid was three hundred miles. This caution, which is a national trait of Englishmen, will not be regarded as a fault by those who consider that in proportion as they are slow to embark in any new enterprise, are they resolute and determined in carrying it out.

To resolve these difficult problems, Mr. Field sought counsel of the highest engineering authorities of Great Britain, and of her most eminent scientific men. To their honor, all showed the deepest interest in the project, and gave it freely the benefit of their knowledge.

First, as to the possibility of laying a cable in the deep sea, Mr. Field had witnessed one attempt of the kind – that in the Gulf of St. Lawrence the year before – an attempt which had failed. His experience, therefore, was not encouraging. If they found so much difficulty in laying a cable seventy miles long, how could they hope to lay one of two thousand miles across the stormy Atlantic?

This was a question for the engineers. To solve the problem, required experiments almost without number. It was now that the most important services were rendered by Glass, Elliot & Co., of London, a firm which had begun within a few years the manufacture of sea-cables, and was to write its name in all the waters of the world. Aided by the skill of their admirable engineer, Mr. Canning, they now manufactured cables almost without end, applying to them every possible test. At the same time, Mr. Field took counsel of Robert Stephenson and George Parker Bidder, both of whom manifested a deep interest in the success of the enterprise.

Not less cordial was Mr. Brunel, who made many suggestions in regard to the form of the cable, and the manner in which it should be laid. He was then building the Great Eastern; and one day he took Mr. Field down to Blackwall to see it, and, pointing to the monstrous hull which was rising on the banks of the Thames, said: "There is the ship to lay the Atlantic cable!" Little did he think that ten years after, that ship would be employed in this service; and in this final victory over the sea, would redeem all the misfortunes of her earlier career.

Among the difficulties to be encountered, was that of finding a perfect insulator. Without insulation, telegraphic communication by electricity is impossible. On land, where wires are carried on the tops of poles, the air itself is a sufficient insulator. A few glass rings at the points where the wire passes through the iron staples by which it is supported, and the insulation is complete. But in the sea the electricity would be instantly dissipated, unless some material could be found which should insulate a conductor sunk in water, as completely as if it were raised in air. But what could thus inclose the lightning, and keep it fast while flying from one continent to the other?

Here again it seemed as if Divine wisdom had anticipated the coming of this great enterprise, and provided in the realm of nature every material needed for its success. It was at least a happy coincidence that only a few years before there had been found, in the forests of the Malayan archipelago, a substance till then unknown to the world, but which answered completely this new demand. This was gutta-percha, which is impenetrable by water, and at the same time a bad conductor of electricity; so that it forms at once a perfect protection and insulation to a telegraph passing through the sea. In the experiments that were made to test the value of this material in the grander use to which it was to be applied, no man rendered greater service than Mr. Samuel Statham, of the London Gutta-Percha Works – a name to be gratefully remembered in the early history of the Atlantic Telegraph.

The mechanical difficulties removed, and the insulation provided, there remained yet the great scientific problem: Could a message be sent two thousand miles under the Atlantic? The ingenuity of man might devise some method of laying a cable across the sea, but of what use were it, if the electric current should shrink from the dark abyss?