Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 702

The cable-ship having been moored alongside the works where the cable is stored, shipment begins. The cable presents three aspects of increasing thickness, namely the shore-end, intermediate, and main; and thus graduated it is payed out of the tanks in the works into the tanks of the ship. When all is aboard, the tanks are filled with salt-water till the cable is soaked, and the ship puts to sea.

During her voyage to the place from which she is to start laying, electrical tests are taken daily of the cables on board, to see that they continue sound, and the machinery for laying is got ready. The souls on board may be divided into three classes. The engineers, or those in charge of the mechanical work of the laying, and their helps 'the cable-hands,' who do the rough work in the tanks and on deck, or in putting out buoys from the ship. The electricians, or those in charge of the electrical work of the laying, whose duty it is to see that the cable is all right electrically. The navigators, or those in charge of the sailing of the ship, including captain, officers, and seamen. The engineer-in-chief is generally the head of the entire expedition; he requires reports from the chief electrician, and instructs the captain where to put the ship.

Before laying a submarine cable between the proposed places it is extremely important to take soundings and otherwise survey the ocean, so as to determine the exact route the cable should take. A cable is too costly to be flung away anywhere on the sea-bottom, and the sea-bottom is sometimes of a very unfavourable character. It may be said that too little attention has hitherto been paid to this point in cable-laying. Expensive cables have been manufactured at home, with their relative lengths of shore-end, intermediate, and main determined by formula or usage, and then hid away in seas whose character had been largely taken for granted; the consequence being that weighty and very costly shore-end has been deposited in mud soft as butter where it would be out of harm's way; while unprotected main has been laid along the jagged surface of coral reefs. The depth and nature of the bottom, the strength and direction of currents, the temperature at the bottom, should all be ascertained beforehand by a special ship appointed to survey the proposed track of the cable. The best route for the cable is then laid down on the charts, as a guide to the navigator and engineers engaged in the laying.

Great improvements have recently been made in the method of taking deep-sea soundings. The ordinary plan is to carry the lead-line (a strong line or small rope of fine tanned Manilla yarn) from the stern along the ship's side to the bows, and there drop the lead into the sea. As it sinks the rope runs out off the drum on which it is coiled, and when the lead strikes bottom the running ceases. The introduction of fine steel pianoforte-wire for the rope, by Sir William Thomson, is a great improvement upon this clumsy method. The wire sinks quickly through the water, and is pulled in again with a very great saving of time and labour. But the most ingenious of all contrivances for finding the depth of the sea is Siemen's Bathometer, a very recent invention. The bathometer simply stands in the captain's cabin like a barometer, and indicates the depth of the sea over which the ship is passing, just as a barometer indicates the height of the atmosphere above. The action of this ingenious contrivance depends on the attraction of the earth on a column of mercury. This attraction is proportional to the earth's density, and the relative distance of its crust from the mercury column. Earth being denser than water, exercises a greater downward attraction on the mercury. If then there are say a hundred fathoms of water just under the mercury instead of a hundred fathoms of earth or rock, there will be less downward attraction on it. Taking advantage of this law, the mercury column is adjusted so as to indicate the power of the attraction and give the depth of water it corresponds to.

Arrived at the place from which the cable is to be laid, the first thing done is the laying of the shore-end from the ship at her anchorage to the cable-hut on the beach. The cable-hut is generally a small erection of galvanised iron or stone and lime to contain the end of the cable and a few instruments. Cables are never if possible landed in harbours, or where there is danger from anchors. A suitable retired cove is generally selected, not far distant from the town where the telegraph office is, and a short land-line connects the end of the cable to the office. In the cable-hut the land-line and cable meet and are connected together.

The distance from the ship to the cable-hut is accurately measured by the ship's boats or steam-launch, so as to fix the amount of shore-end necessary to reach the shore. This is then coiled in a flat barge or raft, and payed out by hand as the launch tugs the raft ashore. When the water becomes too shallow for the raft to float, the men jump into the water and drag the heavy end ashore. A trench has been cut in the beach up to the cable-hut, and into this the end is laid. In a few moments a test from the cable-hut to the ship announces that the shore-end is successfully fixed.

Everything is now ready for the ship to begin paying out. The anchor has been got up; the paying-out gear is all in working order; the men are all at their appointed places. The cable is being held fast at the ship's stern, and the running out by its own weight is prevented. But directly all are aboard again, the word is given, the screw revolves, the cable is let go at the stern, and the real work of paying out begins.

The cable passes from the tank to the stern of the ship, and from thence to the bottom of the sea. The weight of that part which hangs in the water between the ship and the bottom pulls it out of the ship as the latter moves along. If the ship were stationary, still the cable would run out, but then it would simply coil or kink itself up on the bottom. The object is, however, to lay it evenly along the bottom, neither too tight nor too slack, so as at once to economise cable, and to allow of its being easily hooked and hauled up again from the bottom without breaking from over-tightness. The speed of the ship has therefore to be adjusted to the rate at which the cable runs out. It should be a little under the rate of the paying out, so that there is a slight excess of cable for the distance travelled over. Now the rate at which the cable runs out from the ship is greater, the greater the depth; therefore the speed of the ship must be varied as the depth changes. The rate at which the cable runs out, however, is not entirely dependent on the depth. It can be controlled on board by mechanism. The cable can be held back against the force pulling it overboard. But there is a limit to the extent to which it may be held back, and the tension on it must not be so great as to overstrain it. It is necessary, therefore, to know what tension there is on the cable at any time. To achieve this, two apparatus are used: the friction brake (for holding the cable back) and the dynamometer (for indicating its tension).

The cable is made to run cleanly out of the tank by being allowed to escape through a funnel-shaped iron framework called a 'crinoline.' This prevents it from lashing about or flying off as the ship rolls. It then passes over pulleys to the paying-out drum, round which it is passed several times. The paying-out drum is controlled by an Appold's friction brake, which is simply a belt or strap of iron with blocks of wood studded to it clasping the periphery of the drum and restraining its revolution by the friction of the wooden blocks. The tighter the belt is made to clasp the drum, the greater the friction on the drum, and the greater the force required to make it revolve. After passing several times round the drum, so as to get a good hold of it, the cable passes through the dynamometer to the sheave or grooved pulley projecting from the stern, and from thence it passes to the water. The dynamometer is simply a 'jockey pulley' riding on the cable; that is to say the cable is made to support a pulley of a certain weight; and according as the tension on the cable, due to the weight of cable in the water, is greater or less, so will the weight of this jockey pulley supported by the cable cause the cable to bend less or more. Although this jockey pulley is the essential part of the dynamometer, there are three pulleys altogether, two fixed pulleys at the same level, with the riding pulley between. The cable passes over both the fixed pulleys and under the riding pulley. The weight of the latter bends the cable into a V shape; and as explained above, the depth of this V is greater as the tension on the cable is less. In short the tension of the cable can be told from the depth of the V, which is therefore graduated into a scale of tensions.

By regulating the friction on the brake the cable can be held back, under restrictions of tension indicated by the dynamometer, and the speed of the ship adjusted to give the proper percentage of slack. Sixteen per cent. for a depth of two thousand fathoms is a usual allowance. The slack should vary with the depth, because of the possibility of having to hook the cable and raise it up from the bottom to the surface to repair it. The revolutions of the drum, the tension on the cable, the number of turns of the ship's screw, are constantly observed night and day as the laying goes on.

In the electrical testing-room the same watchful activity prevails. A continuous test is kept applied to the cable, to see that its insulating power keeps steady; in other words, to detect any 'fault' that may occur in the cable which is being laid. This is done by charging the cable throughout, from the end on board the ship to the end left behind in the cable-hut, with a current of electricity, and observing on a galvanometer (an instrument described in a recent paper) the amount of electricity which leaks through the gutta-percha from the copper wire inside to the sea-water outside. To shew that the copper wire too keeps continuous from ship to shore, a pulse of electricity is sent along the cable at stated intervals, usually every five minutes. This is either sent from the ship to the cable-hut, or from the cable-hut to the ship by the electricians left on duty there. The resistance too of the copper conductor is regularly taken at times, to see whether the conductor remains intact; for the pulse test only shews that it is continuous, and would not shew, for instance, that it had been half broken through.

The navigators of the ship are meanwhile as busy as the rest on board. It is important to keep the ship as nearly as possible up to the prescribed course marked on the chart, and in any case to determine accurately her place whatever it may be, so that the precise position of the cable on the bottom may be known, in order to facilitate future repairs, if necessary. Observations of the sun and other heavenly bodies are therefore made as often as feasible, and the navigation of the ship very carefully attended to.

If a fault should be reported from the testing-room, the engines are at once reversed and the ship stopped. The length of cable being payed out is cut in two within the ship, and that section still on board is tested first. If the fault is found to be there, a new length of cable is jointed on to the section in the sea, and the laying is again proceeded with. If, however, the fault is in the section already laid, special tests must be applied to locate the fault. If it should be proved to be but a few miles from the ship, she is 'put about;' the end of the section is taken to the bows, where the picking-up gear is situated, and the cable is hauled in slowly from the sea by the help of a steam-winch, the ship going slowly back the way she has come as the cable comes on board. This goes on until the fault is reached and cut out. If the fault should be proved to be twenty or more miles away, the end of the cable is buoyed, and the ship proceeds backward to the locality of the fault. Here she grapples for the cable, hooks it, and draws it up to the surface, where it is cut and the two parts tested separately. The flaw is then cut out of the faulty part and the cable made good. She then returns to her buoy, picks up the end there, joints on the cable on board to be paid out, and continues her voyage.

Arrived at her destination, the shore-end there is landed to its cable-hut. A test taken from there and signals exchanged between the two cable-huts proclaim the completion of her work. It only remains to test the cable daily for a specified period, generally thirty days; and if during this trial time it remains good and sound, it passes into the hands of the Company for whose use it has been laid, and is then employed for regular traffic and public benefit. In a concluding article we will describe the working of submarine cables.

THE ROMANCE OF A LODGING

IN TWO CHAPTERS. – CHAPTER II

'Well, Fred, what will you say to all my sermons on extravagance, when I tell you that I have actually taken the landlady's first-floor rooms for a month; and that without any view to your advantage, which has hitherto actuated my movements? You will say it is only a preliminary step to my employing the artist – who by the way is not an artist after all – to take my portrait!'

Thus did Mrs Arlington announce her plans next morning at breakfast to Fred, who offered no remonstrance. It was enough for him that she chose to do it; he was too well satisfied and accustomed to her guidance and good sense not to fall in readily with everything she did, as the best possible that could be done; and so he assented without a remark.

'You don't scold me, Fred! I expected your reproaches; but they will come later; you are too engrossed at the present moment with the prospect of the examination before you to-day; but I have no fear for you; so have none for yourself.'

'What will you do while I am away?'

'Stay where I am; study the pictures; read the backs of all the books through the glass doors of the bookcase; and think what a churl the owner is to have locked them up. And this amusement over, I shall go in search of a piano; we cannot live for a whole month without one; can we? So I shall order it to be sent on Wednesday morning to our new quarters.'

'Suppose the "gentleman" unlocks his, and sets up an opposition tune; the jumble of melodies will be the reverse of harmonious.'

'Possibly; but then, you phlegmatic youngster, you wouldn't keep me without such a resource, for fear of an occasional discord! Let us hope the gentleman in question will give place to the ladies, and be amiable enough to listen without creating a discord; or he may decamp altogether, if he does not approve of our performances.'

'But tell me what has put it into your head to stay a whole month in London? I thought you said we had only funds for a week.'

'Well, my dear boy, it is just this: I have been thinking that we may as well wait and hear the issue of the examination; as in the event of your being among the successful candidates, of which I have very little doubt, you would be ready to go to Sandhurst without having to incur the double expense of the journey home and back again. Besides, I should like to see the last of you before I sink into my future oblivion, with no further call in the world upon my time and attention beyond writing to you.'

'What nonsense you can talk, mother, when you once begin! I suppose you expect me to believe you are one of the sort that is allowed to go into oblivion. I bet you ten to one some fellow will be wanting to marry you when I am at college!'

'Hush, Fred!' she said, with a solemnity of manner she well knew how to assume, that effectually quenched any conversation the subject of which she did not approve. 'It is time you started.'

'Forgive me; and good-bye,' he said, with a smile, as he prepared to go.

Wishing him 'God-speed,' she saw him depart, and then rung for the landlady.

'There is no difficulty, I hope, about the rooms?' she asked.

'None whatever, ma'am. I've told the lady; and they leave to-night.'

'Thank you. I wished to know positively before I ordered a piano. I suppose there is no objection to my having one, since there is another in the house?'

'None whatever, ma'am. Leastways Mr Meredith is mostly playing and singing when he isn't reading or painting, or at his meals; so that I am well accustomed to the sound by this time. I like it when he plays lively music. But dear me, ma'am! there are times when his spirits are low, or so I take it to be, and then he plays such dreary doleful tunes, it is for all the world as bad as the Old Hundred on them barrel-organs.'

'He is not married, then?'

'O my! no; not he; nor never likely to be,' she exclaimed, repudiating the idea of losing her lucrative lodger under such unfortunate circumstances. 'His man James says as how he once painted that there lovely faced young creature to remind him that women were one and all as false as – I wouldn't like to offend your ears, ma'am, by naming the unholy gentleman as he likens them to; which I took to be no great compliment to myself, seeing I am a woman as was never false to none, which is saying a good deal, seeing how selfish and tiresome men are, as a rule, that it needs us women to be born saints and angels to put up with them.'

'I am afraid I can't quite agree with you there,' said Mrs Arlington, smiling. 'I rather think we give as much trouble as we get, and a little more sometimes.'

Wednesday morning saw her installed in the rooms above, which she busied herself in arranging tastefully, with a view to making their lengthened sojourn comfortable. Towards evening the piano came, and she was just about to try it, when an unusual bustle below-stairs announced the arrival of the gentleman, Mr Meredith. He was evidently a person of consideration in the eyes of the household; such hurrying to and fro and up and down to have everything as he would like, had not before been experienced.

'Glad to see you home, sir,' said Mrs Griffiths, courtesying, and beaming with pleasure.

'Thank you. Have the rooms been occupied?'

'Yes, sir.'

'I should say you ought rather to be sorry I have come, then.'

'Not at all, sir. I've been able to accommodate the lady up-stairs; and right glad I was that she came when she did, for she has got no troublesome hussy of a maid to come bothering about my kitchen.'

'The same old story, Mrs Griffiths!' he remarked, as he smiled pleasantly at her inability to hide her ruling mania; 'and now please let me have dinner as soon as you can, as I have an engagement this evening.'

He walked round the room, placing his desk and other articles he had brought with him in order; examined his pictures, to see that they had not undergone ruthless treatment at the hands of deputy-lodgers during his absence. After looking at them all he paused opposite the portrait of the young girl, and exclaimed mentally: 'Yes, there you are still, heartless mocker! just as you looked when you defied me and flung back my love in scorn. And yet – and yet – perhaps had I but been a little gentler, I might have softened you!' he cried in remorseful thought as he turned away; and the look of genuine regret he wore shewed how deep had been the wound that had the power still to call up a thrill of pain. 'Yes, I tried to break her proud spirit and make it subservient to mine, and I broke my heart instead! She was but young; I ought to have known better; but I was hard and determined, and could brook no opposition to my will. I had studied life, and established my views on most points, until I grew intolerant – a disease natural to culture as well as creed – and could ill bear to have my opinion questioned, especially by those who aspired to my friendship or affection: it interfered with my visions of harmony. Harmony! It was but a monotonous dreary unison I was cultivating, to foster my intense self-love. Bitter delusion! And from her, above all others, I demanded a slavish bending of her will to mine. I was jealous of her possessing an individuality or free right of being or thought apart from me. I was not content with her affection; I wanted her blind worship. No wonder her proud spirit revolted at such a prospect of bondage, and flung me and my love far from me. She was wise and right, and I was too headstrong to humble myself to sue for her forgiveness, or seek to win her by a nobler course. My heart was a flint, which it needed her loss to soften, for I have never seen another like my darling! Yes, my poor girl, I was unjust and cruel, and Providence was kind to you in rousing you to resist!'

In such a strain did his thoughts run, as he sat waiting for dinner, of which he partook in no very elated mood. When the spirit wanders in the sad lone land of irreparable regret, and surveys with the light of experience how different all might have been, had our hearts and wills been differently tuned to action, it is then our footsteps linger, painfully borne down by a weight, well nigh fatal to that courage which bids us bury our dead out of sight, and wander no more amid the graves of the past, but live afresh in the light of a new and better day, with high hope and stern resolve.

Something of this he had done, but not all, for the torment of self-reproach was at times powerful to waste his endeavours in fruitless action or torpid reverie. He was about to sink into the latter at the close of dinner, as, left alone with his coffee and cigar, he sat meditating on the past which he had invoked, when he was startled by the sound of music and the strains of a melody which seemed to float to him across the distant years, and reawaken his heart's sweetest and bitterest memories. Ah! how well he remembered it. It was one he had written and composed for her of whom he had been thinking; and when she sang it to him, he could scarce restrain his tears; but there came a little 'rift within the lute' one day, that soon 'made all the music mute.' Some slight alteration that she had asked for, jarred upon his sense of its perfection – and his own – and he refused half haughtily, which she resented; words succeeded words, until that was said which could never be forgiven or undone; and then she asked to have her freedom back, and he gave it: yes, he gave it! and had never seen or heard of her after, until now – he hears the echo of the melody; but the voice – 'Can that voice be hers?' he cries passionately. Starting up in his chair he listens, with every nerve vibrating to the sound, until it is finished. 'My own song!' he exclaims aloud; and then he rings the bell nervously and summons the landlady. 'Who is your new lodger?' he inquires with assumed calmness.

'Mrs Arlington, sir.'

'Arlington? Arlington?' he mutters. 'Never heard of her. What is she like?'

'A tall sweet-looking lady, sir: I was that taken with I hadn't it in my heart to turn her from the door the night she come here; so I gave her your rooms for a couple of days, for her son and herself.'

'Son! did you say? How old?'

'About sixteen, I should reckon: he has come up for his examinations.'

'No; it is not she,' he thought sadly; 'she could never have had a son so old. But it may be some friend of hers. How else came she by that song, I must find out. – Thank you, Mrs Griffiths,' he said aloud; 'you did quite right to let the rooms; and since she is such a favourite with you, you are welcome to the newspapers for her. Perhaps you had better take them to her every day with my compliments.'

'Thank you, sir; I am sure you are most kind; and I'll tell her what you say.'

'I never will believe, ma'am, half as these good gentlemen say who profess so loud against womenkind. Here Mr Meredith down-stairs, as James says swears against a petticoat even if he sees it hanging in a shop-window, which is most unfeeling-like, to say the least of it – here's he been a begging I'll bring you the newspapers every day, with his compliments!'

'Indeed! That is very thoughtful of him,' said Mrs Arlington, smiling at her landlady's enthusiastic sense of victory. 'Pray give him my compliments, and say how very much obliged I feel. What did you tell me his name was?'

'Meredith, ma'am.'

'Of what family, do you know?'

'That's more than I can say, ma'am. Families, to my mind, is like flowers – a great lot all alike, but divided into so many branches, it were always a puzzle I stopped at. I call a pink a pink, and a carnation a carnation; though the gardener where I lived in service could tell you they were different branches of one family, with a long Latin name, as I never could see not the least bit of good to remember. So I just follow the same plan with families, call them by the names as they hold at birth and baptism; and I only know my gentleman by the label on his box: "Mr Firman Meredith." But if you were pleased to wish to know, I'll ask his man James.'