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

THE SUN, LONf)ON, MONDAY- EVENING, AUGUST 7, 1 65

within the last decade the troubles of India have
changed from those of a semi-barbarous to those of
a civilised country.

Many literary celebrities have been called away
within a comparatively recent period, and society has
had to sustain several serious losses by their un-
timely removal from the circles they adorned and
the community they delighted and instructed.
Another has just been gathered to the Silent Land
who will long be missed. Professor AYTOUN died
on Friday morning last, at a small shooting-lodge
near Elgin. He had been in declining health for
some time, but it was not thought his state was a
dangerous one. Few aspirants to literary honours
have passed a more brilliant and successful career
than the late lamented professor, and he certainly
cannot be classed among those sons of genius
who pine for want of encouragement and
appreciation. His works have always been re-
ceived with a warm welcome, and his writings, in
their peculiar style, have long been considered un-
rivalled. Since the year 1845 he held the honoured
position of Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres
in the University of Edinburgh—a post for which
he was particularly qualified. His connection with
Blackwood's Magazine dates from 1839, and his
contributions to that famous periodical have always
been distinguished for their brilliancy and vigour.
It was an interesting fact of the Professor's early
days that he attended the classes of his future
father-in-law, the renowned Professor WILSON, with
whom he was afterwards associated in connection with
Blackwood's Magazine, although he did not succeed
him in the editorship as some supposed. The work
on which the late Professor's fame chiefly rests
is the series of poesies entitled the " Lays ' of
the Scottish Cavaliers." These are most masterly
productions, and well caculated to hand down their
author's reputation to succeeding generations.
They are full of fire and energy, and also actuated
by the pathos and fine feeling that only a true poet
can impart. Professor AYTOUN was also celebrated
for some humorous productions. The spasmodic
tragedy of " Firmilian" was deservedly praised
at its publication, for it aptly depicted the
class it satirised„ and he also, in conjunc-
tion with Mr. THEODORE , MARTIN, translated
the "Poems and Ballads of GOETHE," and brought
out the famous work of " Bon Gualtier," which is
replete with wit and humour. WILLIAM EDMOND-
STONE AYTOUN has died in almost the prime of life,
for he was only fifty years of age, but it cannot be
said that he has departed too soon for his fame,
since it is not likely that he could achieve a greater
reputation than he has done. Among his contem-
poraries he will be greatly missed, for his genial
qualities made him a general favourite ; but his
friends may rejoice to think that in the literature
he so truly loved he was ranked as a shining orna-
ment, and that Scotland has lost a son whom she
duly honoured, and of whose memory she will long
be proud.

LATEST INTELLIGENCE.

(REUTER'S TELEGRAMS.)

-

FRANCE.

PARIS, AUG. 7.

Admiral Willaumez has been nominated Senator.

The report of the committee appointed under the
presidency of the Empress to inquire into the peni-
tentiary system adopted with young convicts in the
departments of the Seine has been published.
It decides against the course of treatment pur-
sued in La Roquette prison, and in favour of the
agricultural system.

THE BOMBAY MAIL.

SOUTHAMPTON, AUG. 7.

The Peninsular and Oriental Company's steamer
Delta, with the above mail, passed the Needles at
8.40 a.m. to-day. •

THE CHINA MAILS.
MARSEILLES, AUG. 7.
The Messageries Imperiales steamer Moeris, with
China mails, arrived here at 7 a.m. yesterday.
She brings 5,000 bales of silk.

THF.I

ABLE.

(From the Times.)
The failure of the Atlantic Cable and its severance
from the Great Eastern may now be considered
certain, and no commercial misadventure of modern
times 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 elaborate 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
instruments 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, softie 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 board the Great
Eastern. She was probably ab vile° stopped, her
head got round, and the cable passed through the
winding-in machinery fixed forward. how 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 sho wed 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 unfortunate accident,
but, on the contrary, are at once about to take
measures to replace the cable that has been lost.