The Sun.
London, England, 1865-08-07 00:00:00

G, AUGUST 7, 1165

THE

ABLE.

(From the Times.)
The failure of the Atlantic Cable and its severance

*rom the Great Eastern may now be considered

certain, and no commercial misadventure of modern

lines has ever excited more wide-spread interest

and deep regret than this almost national disaster.
Even as late as yesterday evening hopes were en-
tertained—hopes not altogether ill-founded—that

signals would be resumed. That time, however,
has been overpast and the wire remains as dumb
and useless as it has been since Wednesday, with the

only difference that during the interval that has
elapsed the most elatorate and careful tests have
been applied to the wire, and the results of these
experiments submitted to such electricians as have
the largest experience in testing submarine cables.
The almost unanimous verdict of these gentlemen
has been that the 1,250 miles paid out is lost—is
severed from the ship, and now lying useless at the
bottom of the Atlantic. We say almost unanimous

opinion, for a few still hope, and almost believe,
that the ship has yet got hold of the cable, and may
haul back and repair the fault. Their reason for
entertaining this expectation is that as yet no bat-
tery currents have come to land at Valentia. In
almost every case where a submarine cable parts
beneath the sea its copper conductor protrudes
beyond the broken gutta percha end, and comes in
contact with the outside spiral iron wires. The
action of the salt water instantly makes a battery

of the iron and copper, and would transmit what
might almost be mistaken for weak signals to the

ustruments at Valentia.

These are called battery.

currents, and none of these have come. In the case

of the old Atlantic cable these battery signals kept

hope alive for weeks after the cable was gone, for
they were sometimes so distinct upon the needles
as almost to spell words, and day after day
induced the belief that the fault, whatever it was,
had healed itself, and that messages were coming.

But the construction of the two cables is so widely

different as to leave little ground for hope from the

absence of these currents now. The old cable was

covered with 126 fine unprotected wires woven into
18 strands of seven wires each. The present cable

has only 10 strands of stout iron Wire, each of
which is carefully insulated by a good thick covering
of tarred hemp, and these enclosed the gutta percha'
core. When the old cable broke, therefore, metallic
contact was certain to be at once set up between its
conductor and ragged strands of iron wire, whereas
the present cable might easily be broken at the

bottom of the sea without any battery currents aris-
ing, as its outer wires are almost insulated by the
hemp. This is, unfortunately, a strong argument
against those who hope that the Great Eastern has
still got the end of the cable and is underrunning it
to cut out the fault ; but, unfortunately, a still
stronger argument remains. Allowing the widest
margin for the time this operation of hauling in the
rope from such tremendous depths would occupy,
and a further margin of 12 hours for sudden even-
tualities, still the Great Eastern should have reached
the fault at 2 p.m. yesterday afternoon, and signals
would have come through before the evening. None
have come, but, on the contrary, all the tests are
considered by electricians as showing conclusively
that up to about 1,230 miles the insulation and con-
ductivity of the line is absolutely perfect, and that
within a few miles beyond that distance it is severed
and lying at the bottom of the ocean. The balance
of evidence and of scientific opinion points so over-

whelmingly to this disastrous result that it now, we
fear, admits of no reasonable doubt. Of course, the
most extraordinary theories and surmises are rife as
to the cause of the accident. Some give the benefit of
their doubts to sharks, some to whales, some to air
bubbles in the gutta percha, and others dwell upon
the likelihood of malicious injury. It appears almost
certain that the fault did not manifest itself and was
not detected by those on board the great ship till
the faulty portion had been left some 12 miles
astern. What occurred at Valentia, of which we
have now full details, shows almost with equal cer-
tainty what would then take place on boardthe Great
Eastern. She was probably at once stopped, her
head got round, and the cable passed through the
winding-in machinery fixed forward. Ilow much of
the rope was wound in again it is impossible to say,
but it seems almost certain that in this final effort the
cable was broken outside the ship and went at once
to the bottom. To wind in a rope having such hold
on the water as this hemp-covered cable must have
had would have been hazardous in the extreme, from
the certainty that any movement on the vessel
giving it a sudden pull would part it at once. The
old Atlantic cable, which was of less strength, and
had a greater weight in the water than the present
-cable, was, it is true, wound in from a depth of
2,000 fathoms in the Bay of Biscay. This opera-
tion, however, occupied 19 hours, even though its
wire covering had not half the friction through the
water which the hemp would have in the rope which
has now been partly lost. It has been suggested
by some that at the time the accident happened the
telegram to Valentia shoved the Great Eastern to
have been paying out very fast indeed. If this con-
jecture—for as yet it is only a conjecture—is cor-
rect, it will, no doubt, be explained by the fact that
the ship was meeting a heavy swell, which required
the brakes to be opened and the cable let run as the
waves swept astern.
At Valentia on Wednesday last the signals up to
9 a.m. were coming with wonderful distinctness and
regularity, but about that time a violent magnetic
storm set in. No insulation of a submarine cable
is ever so perfect as to withstand the influence of
these electrical phenomenon, which correspond in
some particulars to storms in the ordinary atmo-
sphere, their direction generally being from east and
west. Their action is immediately communicated to
all conductors of electricity, and a struggle set up
between the natural current and that used artifi-
cially in sending messages. This magnetic storm,
which was announced in The Sun of Thursday,
affected every telegraphic station in the kingdom.
At some the wires were utterly useless, and be-
tween Valentia and Killarney the natural current
towards the west was so strong along the land
lines that it required an addition of five times
beyond the ordinary battery power to overcome it.
This magnetic storm, which ceased at 2 a.m. on Fri-
day, was instantly perceptible in the Atlantic cable,
and at about 10 a.m. on Wednesday the signals from
the Great Eastern became confused and indistinct.
Of course, the presence of the magnetic currents was
known to those at Valentia, and due allowance
was, therefore, made for insufficiency of signals
coming eastward. Other and more alarming symp-
toms, however, soon presented themselves. A rapid
loss of insulation became evident. The 20 cells used
on board the Great Eastern had no power,to signal.
At 11 o'clock a.m. it was seen that this battery
power was considerably increased and from 11 to
12 a.m. it was evident that repeated attempts were
being made from the Great Eastern to send mes-
sages by the code signals. None of the signs used,
however, were sufficiently perfect to be read with
certainty. At 12 noon they became a mere crowd
of feeble signs, before 1 p.m. the magnetic currents
had resumed the mastery, and when the electrical
storm was over the tests, as we have said, gave
" dead earth," or a severed wire, almost at the very
spot where the first loss of insulation was detected.
Since that time, with the single exception of the ab-
sence of battery currents, which we have already
described, not a sign has been wanting to show that
the cable is parted. The Great Eastern is expected
to make her number off Valentia about noon on
Wednesday. She is not likely to be preceded by
either of her guards of honour—the Sphinx or the
Terrible—as both the latter vessels, after their long
cruise off Valentia, are likely to be short of coal.
The great ship, however, has coal enough to bring
her back at full speed. It is expected that, after
communicating by signal with Valentia, she will go
to Portland—the only harbour where she has room
and depth of water sufficient to swing to a single
anchor. The loss which has been sustained by this
partial failure of the expedition is estimated at about
£200,000.—a loss which, we are glad to say, may be
considerably reduced by underrunning and recover-
ing much of the line laid from Valentia. We be-
lieve that neither the directors of the Atlantic
Company nor its shareholders • have been dis-
heartened by the 'present J unfortunate accident,
but, on the contrary, are at once about to take
measures to replace the cable that has been lost.