The Sun.
London, England, 1865-08-01 00:00:00

THE ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH,

0

No news has yet reached London as to the cause
of the last abrupt break-down of the cable, and of
its prompt repair within so short a time. Yet, among
electricians and electrical engineers well used to all
the sudden casualties incident to cable laying, very
little doubt is expressed as to how the accident arose,
and still less as to its having been most thoroughly
repaired. It will be recollected that, when the first
fault was occasioned by the stray piece of wire, the
Gnat Eastern was 90 miles from land, and in 300
fathoms water. This mishap, however, only caused
defective insulation, and that of so slight a charac-
ter as not to be discovered till nearly 11 miles of the
wire had been paid out and it had been nearly two
hours under water. Yet, to haul this amount of
cable back, cut out the faulty piece, make a new
splice, &c., occupied nearly 21 hours, the wire itself
being only raised from its depth of 300 fathoms at
the rate of rather less than half a mile an hour, six
hours being consumed in getting on board the 11
miles. The accident which occurred on Saturday
was totally different. It was not defective insulation
which was then discovered at Valentia, but, as the
telegram said, a total loss of insulation ; in other
words, either the copper conductor was stripped of
' all its outside protection, and was communicating
with the water, or the cable had been cut or com-
pletely broken. The Admiralty charts of the bottom
of the Atlantic--charts constructed from soundings
especially made to forward this great undertaking
—show by the distance from land that the Great
Eastern was then in 1,800 fathoms water, or,
allowing for slack, a little more than two miles of
rope was stretching from her stern to the bottom
of the ocean. The enormous pressure and friction
1 of the water on the saturated outer hemp covering
of the line at its depth would render it a difficult
matter to wind in this two miles' length, if it
could be done at all, in less than 12 hours. It
is almost certain, however, that it could not have
been done at all had the cable been so injured as to
leave its conductor bare—an injury that would at
least take off two-thirds of the rope's strength.
That such a fault could not have occurred is gene-
rally considered as sufficiently evidenced by the fact
that the fault, whatever it was, was repaired in little
more than half the time it would have taken to haul
back the cable, supposing the accident to have
occurred to the portion submerged, and even close
at hand. It is therefore conjectured, with the utmost
appearance of probability, that the fault was caused
by a " kink" having been seen to pass into the pay-
ing-out machine, and the vessel was instantly stop-
ped, the kink extracted, the piece cut out, and a new
splice made: It is certainly worthy of attention that
this theory is borne out by the fact that the time
consumed in repairing the accident—which is known
by the cessation of signals—is almost to a minute
the time that would be required to make and test
such a splice on board the Great Eastern. Those in
charge, then, knowing that all was right behind
them, and that time was of vital importance, would
not be likely to waste it by putting the severed end
of the wire in communication with the instruments
at Valentia, while the electricians at the latter sta-
tion could send no response'to their signals through
a cut cable, but, on the contrary, there was a total
loss of insulation.

The intelligence we publish from the Great Eastern
to-day is more hopeful for the success of the under-
taking than appears on the mere face of it ; 900 miles
have been paid out, which means not only that the
after tank, which kept her so heavily down by the
stern and so seriously impeded her speed, is empty,
but that the passage of the cable from the stern tank
to that forward has been successfully accomplished,
and the end is now fast lightening also. The after-
most tank held 830 miles of cable and 400 tons of
water. By this time, therefore, it is vacant, and a
good length will have been taken out of the forward
tank, which only contained 700 miles. In round num-
bers, the vessel has now expended nearly 3000 tons of
cable and water and 2000 tons of coal. Every 1,000
tons makesadifferenee of 11 inches in her immersion,
so that, counting the consumption of stores, &c.,the
Great Eastern is now six feet higher out of the water
than she was at starting, in perfect trim to enable all
the engines to do Their work fairly, and keep the
vessel's course against almost any weather she is likely
to meet. That the latter has as yet been singu-
larly mild is shown by the small amount of slack
paid out. As high as 25 per cent. is a usual allow-
ance for rough weather, but up to the present the
Great Eastern has not exceeded 12. This ought
to bring her on the coast of Newfoundland with
only 1,900 miles paid out, leaving still 400 miles of
cable on board to complete another submarine link
wanted there. Our description of the shore end of
the cable was so worded as to convey an impression
that it was a continuous taper from its thickest part
at Valentia out to where it terminated in its great-
est depth at 100 fathoms. This is not so. The cable
is of a uniform thickness of 2/ inches throughout
its entire length of 27 miles. At the sea end of
this length there are' 500 yards of rapid tapering
till it ends in being the size of the main deep-sea
portion of the cable. This shore end is the strongest
and heaviest ever constructed, weighing upwards of
20 tons a mile, and being equal to a breaking strain