The Sun.
London, England, 1858-09-20 00:00:00

TI.WWII4PDIFr

.-•-,
..---..
_ .
-- _,-,,
,<•-- __
- /...,;:e7 ._
..____)3,----- ic "s:--7 ' ---- ' ..--'-% 're -<'`- .----...-."- --''' .--62
•, , .
__._
~...-'
. N EINT S pAPER
_
,--- _
77 ----
...-e- ,_.=._ ,<_____
.__,-,- ----, ~--,..,--' 1. \c"":..,
. , _, t*l K.', ro, tg r ,-1 elln rwn ~.,--\ ---0 - -1,,,. ;- i-, .e 7- .. ,- •- - • ... - - ~. ,-.„, ....
,11 __ .
~ i _ „,,....1. ,Llef. , •i . . - - - iro I , KIJP - - 3..
"d
ril::all i:C.
c-
,
P
• ' ''..A..,'
~..,044 , 44. , • ilbb.. ~.4-. , 1....:,,„
- ) - . ' ' lib .......** , ~ .
, f--). t
4 . ~
•
--„. - ----_—___
•.•,e.
• .4
_
41 t B,k\ ---4,:.\:-__:...,,„,,,.,.._..----L_r_ii-.':'L.":„.:__',.06%,,.,:„--,•,....:::.::---,.-H,.,,,.....4:-.,,'\.,• .r....5.-.(5,-..'//..,f'5.,-,-„li .- -
1,,..is -s
~..,,,. ~ 14;7.
'f ab r-f* ''''-‘,. ' ' DIE P '"';'''' et' """"t '41.• ~.1. .- ,•,...c.,11 - i Ron , , id
..4,....3 :-......._, .
41-1-11 P- + tildurii:rgof
,the failure,
town. The Wrol'•-•
Lest hi
than of an tkiedita, wi
issue. This at least US the talus
Atl-

dos 0, that the warm
retarded the sailing of the sl
in the light of a forlorn hope,
any prospect of successful L
of feeling which came most frequently before me in
conversation with all those in connexion with the enterprise s-e
—success possible, but almost infinitely improbable.
The electrical arrangements to be.made use of this year X
in the process of pa} -g;:talt had been reduced to the simplest
elements, and the instruments required were of the least ,1
complex form. No telegraphing, in the ordinary sense of
the term, was to be attempted between the ships, but a code
of signals to be used interchangeably every ten minutes,
by either of the vessels in turn, afforded at once the means of
incessant testing, and of conveying, by a change of symbol,
information on one or two points connected with the pro-
gress of the work. As every ten miles of cable was payed
out, each vessel was to nsltify the fact to her companier,
and to receive her aci.losdedgment thereof, in token of her
receipt of the intelligetice. The announcement of being in
shoal water, and of going to land the end, with a very few
others, filled up tho category of this simple code.
The expedition sailed, bearing with it the good wishes
of all, and the sanguine hopes of few, if any, of those con-
nected with the undertaking. That which seemed
hardly to be in the engineer's power to accomplish by any
effort of skill, was effected for him by other agency thah
his own, and this in a manner which he, perhaps, would
least have anticipated. Tho machinery contained no special
adaptation for rough weather ; it had been wished to select
the finest period of the year, and to take advantage of the
calmest weather for the purpose. It is the opinion of one
the most competent to judge on board the Agamemnon,
that the rough weather on this last occasion saved the cable.
This he explained to me as arising from three causes—First,
that it made them go faster than they otherwise would have
done, and this greatly relieved the strain upon the cable.
Secondly, that the load on the breaks being thus rendered
unnecessary, it was in great measure removed, and thus
a source of great risk greatly lessened. Thirdly, that on the
commencement of rough weather, it became obvious that
the rise and fall of the stern of the ship alternately hastened
and then retarded the movements of the wheels to such an
extent as to make it certain' that the inertia of the paying.
out sheaves would shortly snap the cable. No compensa-
tion apparatus had been provided for this, nor could tha
steam-engine which had been fitted up on board be made to
answer this puipose; but the hands of the sailors, guided
and encouraged by their officers, performed this duty, re-
gulating the run of the wheels with the rise and fall of
every wave, day and night without intermission, from the
commencement of rough weather on the Ist, till the Aga-
memnon cast anchor at Valentia on the sth of August.
I have carefully looked over the published report of the
engineer, and can find in it no allusion to this fact; perhaps
it escaped his attention. It is the more necessary, then,
that it should be brought prominently forward as a matter
of the highest importance towards the successful laying of a
future cable. It proves that while engineering skill may
fail, the unwearied care •and attention on the part of others
engaged in the work.may win success. True, Capt. Preedy
and the officers of the Agamemnon are not entirely forgotten
in the report, but the acknowledgment of their labour is dealt
out with such scant measure that it falls on the ears worse than
an empty compliment to those who know how largely, how
entirely, the success has thus been earned by the officers and
crew of the Agamemnon. Last year the nautical element in
the expedition was made light of and discussed—this year
it seems to have been made use of and ignored.
The arrival of the Agamemnon and Niagara at Valentia
and Trinity Bays respectively took place within a few hours
of each other. Within a few miles the same length of cable
had been expended by each ; communication had been main-
tained, with one or two temporary interruptions, by means
of the pre-arranged 814-signals until the time of landing.
These interruptions had given rise at the time of their
occurrence to the greatest anxiety ; but, whatever had been
their origin, they had been remedied or passed away, and
had ceased to produce any serious inconvenience. The ends
the cable were now landed, the distant one in an almost
wilderness at the head of Trinity-Bay, our own on Valentin
Island. Communication, at first maintained by the ship.
signals orly, was shortly attempted by use of our special
instruments for speaking. Newfoundland answered our
coil currents by giving us the pre-arranged lauding signal
as used on ship-board, and this was repeated frequently
during the day. We therefore waited patiently till time
should admit of their making the necessary arrangements,
continuing, meanwhile, to exchange signals with them,
their special instruments for speaking of course not yet
being prepared or adjusted.
By midnight on the fourthday after the landing of the
end, the speaking instruments at Newfoundland were suffi-
ciently adjusted for them to work. We received from them
words at good speed and with perfect accuracy, which were
recorded at times by the use of my own instruments alone,
at other times received also upon Thomson's galvanometer,
and recorded in the manner already described at Keyham,
and sometimes by both systems simultaneously. Sentences
and messages followed, and the faCility with which these
were received, led me to believe at first that a difficulty
which they experienced in reading our, signals was to be
attributed to the injury, or still imperfect adjustment of the
delicate receiving instruments carried out in the Niagara
and Gorgon.
The gradually decreasing strength of our current as re-
received at Newfoundland,and reported by thern,soon madeit
evident, however, that slight, but gradually increasing injury
to our cable at this end was the cause of this ember eassraent,
This continued to increase, till they ware reduced to read-
ing our signals by barely visible movement of their most
sensitive detector—half a degree—while we received more
than a hundred times this amount of force from
them. Our mode of working was then modified to stilt tts
altered condition of the conductor—voltaic currents of low
intensity being employed, and the signals being sent, at
their request, much more slowly than before.
Soon they ceased to receive even this feeble trace of
communication from us, while yet their signals as received
by us were :of ample strength. After a time these also
began to dim,nish very considerably in force, and it became
evident that the injury was gradually increasing, and
would shortly interrupt all commr,)ication either way.
The peculiar mode in which this difficulty manifested
itself pointed unmistakeably to the Valentia end as the seat
of injury. Our superintendents at Newfoundland them-
selves detected it, and twice telegraphed to us to teat
for it. I had satisfied myself, by most conclusive tests,
that it was close at hand.

The shore end, intended for protection of our cable, was
ly;ng at Keyham, and our slight and fragile cable, pre-
pared for the tranquil ocean depths, was exposed to the
full swell of the Atlantic on the Irish coast, and to the
swaying to and fro from every tide.
I beloved, from my testing, and from the gradual mode
in which the injury had manifested itself, that the fault
would be found slight in degree, but extended probably
over that portion of our fragile cable between high water
mark and the deep and tranquil sea, for which is was alone
intended, where it was exposed—and allowed to remain
exposed, I cannot but say negligently—almost wantonly—
to an amount of strain and attrition for which it was known
to be unfitted.

I wal not here offer on, opinion'as to whether it was the
duty of the board or their engineer to have guarded against
the occurrence of injury from such well-known causes
while the means were at hand provided by themselves ;
suffice it that up• to the fourteenth day, I was left, sur-
rounded by these difficulties, in responsible:charge of the
station 'w ithout support.
I therefore took upon myself the onus of directing the
cable to be raised and examined by Mr. Canning. The
weather prevented the completion of this till the day on
which I left for town by order of the directors. On the
evening of that day I was informed by telegraph at one of
the stations on my journey that our superintendent had
discovered and cut out a faulty part, which by testing had
given 45 degress of loss. And the following morning, on
my arrival at the telegraph station at Dublin, I found that
the President's message, which, had been waiting a long
time, was at last coming through the cable.
The submersion of the shore end—always admitted to be
necessary—and which ought to have been ready on the
arrival of the ships, has been, in my opinion, unnecessarily
delayed. It is now again, I hear, postponed, and May is
spoken of by some of those immediately connected with the
company as the proper time for recommencing operations.
Meantime, no steps that I can ascertain have been taken
since I left Valentia to prove the validity or otherwise of my
opinion, further than multiplied appeals to a mode of testing
demonstrably uncertain in its application to the present
purpose.
Of the circumstances attending my resignation of office
the public will become aware through other channels ; I

will not, therefore, now enter upon them. If the opinion
which I had then formed and expressed as to the nature
and seat of the injury should prove to be correct (and I
have heard nothing since my resignation which leads me'to
think otherwise), the directors of the Atlantic Telegraph
Company stand in a remarkable position. Having a suc-
cess which has startled the whole world laid at their feet,
they know not how to use it, but by apathy and incompe-
tence suffer it to elude their grasp, and the grand enter-
prise of the day to fall into collapse.

P.S. While penning these lines, I am informed that corn.
munication from Valentia Island to the mainland, hitherto
established by means of a spare mile-length of the Atlantic
deep-sea cable, has been for some days entirely interrupted
in consequence of injury occurring within the harbour.
EDWARD ORANGE WILLIAM WHITEHOUSE,
Electrician Projector of the Atlantic Telegraph.
Royal Institution, Albemarle-street, Sept. 18.

[ADVERTISEMENT.] HOLLOWAY'S OINTMENT AND
PlLL;.—Marvellous cures of sciatica, stiff joints, paralysis
of the limbs and other crippling diseases of the boner,
sinews, and muscles have been accomplished by Holloway',
Ointment. It is the only unguent which produces any
impression on these complaints. The Pills also work won-
ders. The Ointment and Pills should be both used at the
same time, for the action of the one is assisted by that of
the other. Why should any human being suffer from the
above,mentioned maladies when Holloway's Ointment and
Pills are to be found in every city and town in the world°
These noble medicaments arc composed of rare balsams, and
are as benign and safe as they are powerful and efficacious.