The Sun.
London, England, 1869-02-01 00:00:00

THE FRENCH ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH.

For no other reason but to establish a submarine tele-
graph company could a million of money have been found
in such an incredibly short space of time as that occupied
in the successful formation of the French Atlantic Tele-
graph Company. The growth of telegraphy in some
parts of the Continent in recent years has, owing to
greater facilities and a lower tariff, been even more rapid
than in England. Here the number of messages
has increased annually at the rate of from 15 to 20 per
cent. ; in France the difference is greater, for, taking
the year 1863 against 1867, there has been an increase of
million and a half of messages - nearly double in five
years ; in Prussia they have increased 34 per cent. ; and
in Austria the traffic over the telegraph lines has been
fourfold in six years. This is a very satisfactory state of
things, and it has been the wonder of many why the
French Government have not before this established a
direct line of telegraphy from Europe to America, as
surely, if not for political purposes, the extraordinary
increase of commercial telegraphic correspondence would
guarantee the success of such an undertaking.
It was not until the other day that Mr. Reuter
laid before the public a concession granted to him
and the Baron d'Erlanger by the Imperial Government of
France to lay a cable between France and America. The
Great Eastern is now off Sheerness, wearing her old rigid,
rock-like appearance from the water, and a visitor is apt
to form an opinion on approaching the ship that his friends
an out—there is nobody on board. Once on the deck and
this notion vanishes. Everything before you is business
to the letter, which is carried on with clock-like
regularity. On deck there are the old hand-forges
groaning and hissing, the same machinery and paying
gear. There are three huge wrought-iron tanks con-
structed in her sides, and shored up by stout
timber struts which make them almost part and
•.-:urcel of the ship ; these are all water-tight, and can be
filled and emptied as required. From the centre of each
tank rises a cone, and around this the cable has been coiled
with great care and exquisite regularity. The line will be
in two sections, each section containing three different
kinds of cable. The main section is from Brest to the
island of St. Pierre. This cable measures 2,325 miles, and
the second section will be laid from St. Pierre to Boston,
which is a distance of 750 miles. The object of having
different kinds of cables is to guard against the least
possibility of damage from an uncertain bottom and
damage from icebergs. Each section has a shore end, a
shoal-water cable, and a main cable. The main cable of the
Brest and St. Pierre section is of almost the same construc-
tion as the 1865.6 cables, only the core, or copper conductor,
is larger and weighs more ; it consists of homogeneous wires
enveloped in Manilla hemp. All the cables are protected
by Mr. Latimer Clark's patent outside covering, the pro-
perties of which were amply proved the other day in the
Persian Gulf cable to resist the action of the sea water.
They were manufacturing the cable at the rate of thirty
miles a day, so that they can have it completed with ease
by contract time—the middle of June. The weight of
cable, coal, and provisions on board the big ship at start-
ing will not be under twenty-eight hundred tons. All the
officers employed on the last Atlantic expedition will be
with the French cable, and the Great Eastern is to have
a convoy from the Imperial Government across the
Atlantic.—Daily News.