The Sun.
London, England, 1865-06-30 00:00:00

The Atlantic Telegraph.

Since the Great Eastern has been moved from
Sheerness all the final arrangements for her great
undertaking have been pushed forward to the ut-
most, and in the course of another few days she will
be in a condition to start, though it is not probable
that she will really move to sea before the 9th or
10th of July. She is now anchored in the channel,
about seven miles below the Nore, swinging freely
to the wind and tide, held only by a single six-ton
Trotman anchor, and having a minimum depth of
eight fathoms under her at low water. Since she
has been moved from her old berth in the Medway
the work of coaling her to the utmost has been
steadily going forward. Half of her extra supply of
1,500 tons is already aboard, and the rest will be
stowed away by the end of next week. With all her
weights she will then draw a little over 33i ft., though
with very nearly 24,000 tons on board. This com-
paratively slight immersion gives the best idea of her
immense size, as aline-of-battle ship of only 2,500
tons draws seldom less than 28ift., and very often
30ft. Before leaving her moorings. in the Medway
divers were sent down to examine the bottom of the
ship, and they reported ,her tolerably clean, except -
from mussels, which will' all drop. off before slie '
reaches Dover. The approaching voyage, however,
is one of the very few when extreme foulness of the
ship's bottom would be by no means a disadvan-
tage, as it will be rather difficult than otherwise to
keep the Great Eastern .at the low rate of steaming
required to pay out the cable with perfect safety.
To insure this only the screw engines will be used
on the voyage, the paddle engines being simply
kept with banked-up fires in readiness for use on
the port or starboard sidei in case of a beam wind
on either quarter necessitating an assistance
to the great ship's steerage way. Her crew will be
about 200 men, and the full complement of all on
board, including cable hands, staff of electricians,
engineers, &c., a little over 300. Mr. Glasse starts
with the massive shore-end for Ireland early next
week. This enormous solid portion of the cable
goes in a special vessel, and will be submerged from
Valentia to a distance of 25 miles from the shore on
Monday, the 10th. The end at sea will be buoyed
to await the Great Eastern's arrival ; that on shore
will be put in communication with the wires of the
International and Magnetic Companies, which
already give through communication with Valentia.
When the Great Eastern arrives and the splice is,
completed her voyage will instantly commence, a
fine steamer called the Hawk accompanying her for
a distance of some 30 or 40 miles. In this steamer
will be the directors of the company and a fewiuvited.
guests, but absolutely none not connected with the
business of laying the cable will be allowed on board
the Great Eastern. Twice a day, in the morning
and in the evening, signals will be sent through
from the ship to Valentia, stating where the vessel
is, &c., and these will be regularly transmitted direct
to London. Anything therefore occurring on board
the ship will be instantly known in England, while,
on the other hand, anything going wrong with the
cable itself will be as quickly ascertained—not alone
from the cessation of signals, but from the tests that
can be applied to the end at Valentia.
The paying-out machine is being fixed on
board the ship, and the leading trough has also been
completed along the deck. This latter is a plain
timber frame, supporting a semicircular trough of
iron, down which the cable is drawn to the paying-
out machine, the friction of its passage sufficing to
keep it " taut," and obviate all chance of " kinks "
entering the machine. All three tanks containing
the cable have now been completely filled with water,
and the wire, in fact, is as much submerged now as
it will be at the bottom of the Atlantic—with this
difference, that the pressure of the immense depths
of the ocean will materially improve the condition
of the cable by the compression of the gutta-percha.
In these three tanks the temperature and quantity
of water are kept precisely equal, and a series of
electrical tests have been taken for the last three
days, and will be continued for five days more, in
order, from the results of all, to obtain a standard
of what the condition of the cable should be while
paying out. The contents of the three tanks—that
is, the entire length of 2,500 miles of cable—have
now been coupled up, and signals are sent through
morning and evening. These signals show the in-
sulation and conductivity of the wire to be al,naost
absolutely perfect, even in an electrical sense. Thus,
even with the rough instruments, a message of four
words was sent through yesterday in a minute and a
quarter. The company, however, believe they have
succeeded in designing instruments which can more
than double this rate of signalling. But even tak-
ing the four words in a minute as a fair standard, the
yield of profit from such a wire at the rate of £2
per word, which we believe is to be the charge,
would be immense, and, allowing for_ repeats and
service signals, amount to more than a million
annually. Certainly all that science and skill can
do has been done for the cable, and everything now
depends on moderately fair weather for the voyage.
If that aJditional good fortune should only be
vouchsafed to the undertaking hourly communica-
tion with the most distant regions of North America
may be confidently looked for on the 28th of July
next.