The Sun.
London, England, 1852-08-07 00:00:00

THE IRISH SUBMARINE TELEGRAPHS.
(From the Expositor of this day.)
The success of the electric telegraph would have
been greatly circumscribed if means had not been
found of passing the electro current under water.
Intelligence would have been transmitted swiftly over
continents and arrested by narrow chancels. Toe
instruments of perfecting important disCoveries some-
times appear along with the invention. The electro
current can be conveyed beneath water by the aid of
gutta percha, and this singular material came into the
western markets at the precise time when it was re-
quired to accomplish this work. The • wires of the
electro telegraph, when stretched on poles by the side
of railways, according to the common practice in this
country, are independent of gutta prcha ; but when
they are carried through tunnels its aid is necessary.
The aerial telegraph, although common in Britain, is
not universally used. The subterranean system is
chiefly practised in Germany. We suspend the wires
on poles, and the Pru,sians cover them up in a trench.
The idea of messages overtaking railway trains, pass-
ing them with inconceivable rapidity, and preparing
for travellers an unwelcome reception at the end of
their journey, has become a frequent subject of sen-
timental writing. It is not quite so
startling as
those underground messages transmitted with equal
rapidity. As the train hurries over the line, the tra-
veller has leave to imagine that his eye detects a
slight tremulousness in neighbouring wires, although
that is entirely imaginative; but in the case of the
subterranean telegraph information of an evil deed
seems to spring out of the earth. But the telegraph
has other, more common, and more important pur-
poses to serve than that of a police assistant. It is
not always charged with messages of evil. It carries
All the more important missives of the age, and if it
ever brings a tale of danger or of war, it will as often
convey the glad tidings of safety and of peace. Its
operations and tendencies are all on the side of inter-
national friendships and amity, for it utterly anni-
hilates distance in one respect, and will maintain yet
hourly communications between the most distant re-
gions of the earth. But deep wide oceans intervene
between them, and neither the English nor the
German systems of telegraphing are practicable on
them. Science had not material whereby to
throw a bridge with poles and wires over the
while the subterranean system seemed
Atlantic, improbable. The latter,
at least equally_
afforded suggestions for a subaqueous tele-
graph, orraoh The insulation and protection of the tele-
graph es were requisite in the subterranean sys-
eereenfully afforded by gutta percha. The
gtermar,--andirw
covered by tbat strange gum,
wires bad bad b
from
eastern tree, and while this covering
tracted
did not interfere with the transmission of messages, it
etn ily shielded the swift messenger on the Jour-
diesperhaps we should describe it with more pro-
priety or
ils of the fragile highway on which .
tphraiettLassaeteege.r travels. Even scientific men don ot
perceive the more obvious facts connected with
always
the matter on which they operate; and, in the first
subag.u.eous telegraphs were proposed of
instance,
gutta alone. That material
wire, coated with
great powers of erch&
resistance ••' but yet, placed
possesses
ocean, sunk a hundred fathoms, or any
beneath the
other number of
fathoms deep, and chafed against
the wrecks of vessels, or many other
substances,
rocks, even the
would fail. The wire coated with
watts percha was even, we believe, thrown over the
channel, ut it did not maintain the commu-
English
more han twenty-four hours. It
nication for
was now clear that the gutta percha would protect
the wires of the
subaqueous
telegraph, if it could
be itself secured against therough handling which
all invading
substances experience at times from the
ocean. The latter object has been affected by galva-
nised wires twisted in a spiral form round the gutty
'a which a copper wire is enclosed. The
percha case, 1
telegraph across the channel to the French coast was
put down in the month of September last. It has
now been in operation for
ten or twelve months, and
the insulation
of the wire is so complete that the
communication has been steadily maintained. In
line was thrown over the Irish
June last a telegraph
The distance channel from Holyhead_ t
sH_xotwth. •
Tile,. and the coast
be-
tween these points is full
riouy . The agitation in
on both sides "rocky rough.'
favour of an Irish Atlantic steam-packet port caused
considerable excitement
on telegraphic matters.
suspended from Dublin to
be
Wires could easily
Galway along the line of railway ; and, the difficul-
once overcome, intelligence re-
ties of the channel
ceived on the west coast of Ireland might be trans-
mitted to London with great rapidity. The absolute
transmission, if the line were not broken by inter-
vening scarcely
stations, can be measured by time.
The messenger would not require a second on the way
over the wide Irish bogs, which are to be converted
into gold, and over the wider fertile lands of that
country, which require no such conversion; for they
are already more valuable than gold itself—down be•
neath that deep and often stormy channel—past the
busy towns of the north-west of England, and over
all the breadth of the land from Holyhead to Loth-
bury or Charing-cross. The Irish telegraph would
be formed—that fact was unquestionable after the
completion of the French line. Rival companies were
therefore anxious for the work, and those who carried
over the first intelligence were likely to be successful
in preserving the business.
The channel between Holyhead and Howth is over
sixty miles in breadth, and Howth itself is at a con-
siderable distance from Dublin. The cost of pre-
pared wires must be very heavy ; and where a choice
can be readily obtained, the narrow crossing of any
channel will probably be adopted. The crossing be-
tween Portpatrick on the Scottish coast, and Do-
naghadee in the neighbourhood of Belfast, is not
much over twenty miles. The channel is narrowed
to little more than ten miles between the western
corner of Argyleshire and the eastern extremity of
Antrim ; but the telegraphic wire would have to be
carried by land for many miles from Glasgow to the
point nearest to Ireland on the Argyleshire coast, and
again on the Irish coast towards Belfast for a shorter
distance, but still one more considerable than from Do-
naghadee. A company was therefore formed to con-
nect the British and Irish coast from Portpatrick.
They have adopted the subterraneous system from
Dumfries onwards through a great breadth of coun-
try, forming the south-western shoulder of Scotland
onwards to the coast. Upon the Irish shore the
Belfast and County Down Railway does not come
within ten miles of Donaghadee, and for that distance
the railway will render no aid to the telegraph.
These operations necessarily occupied considerable
time, and although now completed, yet other parties,
by a decided step, telegraphed the wider channel be-
tween Holyhead and Howtb, while the northern
company were digging trenches. One day a gentle-
man called at the Gutta Percha Company's works in
London and inquired if they could supply him with
one wire, double covered with gutta percha, and
eighty miles long, within two weeks. The question
was somewhat startling, for the order, taken in con-
nexion with the time for its performance, was out of
the common line of business. It was, however, ac-
cepted, and it was accomplished. Of course the
company cover telegraphic wires with gutta percha as
part of their business, while their customer probably
wished to keep his own secret, and so their depart-
ment was completed and the work delivered for some
time, and re-covered at works in Newcastle-on-Tyne
with galvanised wires, before they were made ac-
quainted with its destination. This was the first
telegraphic wire which crossed the Irish Channel,
and it wrought well for some time. We have
learned, however, that it has been broken, and is
irreparable. The report has caused some anxiety
among commercial men in reference to sub-
marine telegraphs ; but the circumstances show
nothing against them. Even if wires of the descrip-
tion employed should be altogether unsuccessful, the
communications will still be formed and maintained.
The first engraving shows accurately the form and
size of the wire from Holyhead to Howth.
The telegraph wire is insulated within a double
covering of gutta percha, and the latter is protected
by twelve very small galvanised wires twisted around
it in a spiral form. The rope is only of the thickness
represented in the engraving, and has a fragile or
rather weak appearance for the rough kind of work
between Holyhead and Howtb.
The villagers of Donaghadee and Portpatrick bad
long been interested in the intercourse between the
two islands. Neither of these places had a natural
harbour. The shelter afforded by them for shipping
had been almost entirely cut out of rocks. The cur-
rent in their great ferry resembled " a mill race."
The water seemed ever to be in haste to get in, or
else to get out and away again, between the narrow
points of land where Scotland and Ireland struggle to
meet. Immense sums of money, which we should
not like to count over, have been expended on this
passage for the benefit of Donaghadee and Portpatrick
in particular, and the world at large, in a more gene-
ral way. When railways and steam navigation changed
this "ferry" a few years ago, the villagers on bothd
sides considered themselves very badly used indeed,
by by science. They offer a practical example ortoyte.
propriety of people trusting to the "march of
improve-
ment," to
ment," and waiting on. Another stage pr oDof the
restore and secure the more interesting Pao -to
old
communications between the countries to to
together—
channel. The two villages were to
veestern di-
not only two islands—but the eastern 3 rand
ene wal of their
visions of the earth. Then, with thtib'
mpetition to
co
hopes came the Holy well and BC
reported destruc-
destroy them. Now, however, t
wire has given new
tion of the rival communicatdin
grortpatrick, and the
confidence to Donaghadee and two quiet villages say
wiser class of persons in the
rofitablY to cross the
that people cannot expect ?Plans being g decidedly in
plans of nature—one of these
their favour.
A more important section of the community ex-
press fears that the submarine lines of communica-
tion will always be
liable to stoppages, find, from the
destruction of wires, will become wireasouably ex-