The Sun.
London, England, 1858-09-08 00:00:00

THE ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH.

The Atlantic Telegraph is at fault. Whether the
stoppage be a temporary or a permanent one—
whether it is caused by some flaw in the cable

within such limits that it can be detected and reme-
died—is yet to be determined. There is no great
cause for despondency in the present interruption.
It rather sets forth the necessity of more cables.
Now we find we can lay a cable two miles deep in
the sea, and that a cable so laid can be made to
transmit electric signals, it seems a folly to depend
upon all the chances and accidents which may
happen to a single line.
During the short time this single cable has been
laid down between Ireland and Newfoundland, the
signals to Newfoundland have once before ceased.
Mr. Whitehouse discovered the cause of the
interruption. There was a faulty portion of
the cable near Valentia ; it was fortunately easily
accessible. As soon as it was taken up and repaired,
the electrical communication was re-established.
This interruption happened while the President's
reply to the Queen's message was waiting at New-
foundland to be transmitted. It must appear very
curious, if not inexplicable, to those of our readers
who are not familiar with the mode in which elec-
trical telegraphy is carried out, that while no sig-
nals could be sent from Ireland to Newfoundland,
they could be-received in Ireland from Newfound-
land. To electricians like Mr. Whitehouse the
cause ;of this is obvious. But the phenomena of
electrical telegrapy are so novel to most people,
that we shall -be excused if we endeavour to make
our readers appreciate the obviousness of the cause.
The bond of electrical union between Ireland and.
Newfoundland consists of a copper strand, contain-
ing seven twisted wires of pure copper. Each wire
is not much thicker than a thread of sewing
silk, and a section of the rope formed by the twist-
ing of all seven not much larger than the head of
an ordinary sized pin. Such is the thickness of
the electrical road to America under the depths of
the ocean. The gotta percha coverings of this
copper rope, as well as its hempen and iron wire
sheathings, are only for the insulation and support
of the precious core.
Of the marvels of modern electricity, perhaps the
most astounding is this, that either water or earth
will serve as a return wire for the telegraph.
When the electric telegraph was first introduced,
it was supposed to be necessary to lay down, or
erect, two insulated wires, between the stations
from and to which signals were to be received and
despatched. Supposing, for instance, we wished to
communicate between London and Edinburgh ; the
electrical current could only be sent from London
to Edinburgh, so as to record itself, upon the con-
dition that there should be some means by which
it should travel back again to the place whence it
started.
The electrical current could only be created in
London, and detected at Edinburgh, by the exis-
tence of two electrical roads, one to carry the cur-
rent and the other to return it, so as to establish
what is called a complete or closed circuit. This
required two wires, one to carry the message shock,
wave, or current, from London to Edinburgh, the
other to return it. It was soon discovered, first,
that wherever there existed an unbroken body of
-water it might be substituted for.the return wire ;
and secondly, that the earth itself, for all known
distances of electrical stations, might be similarly
used.

How it comes that earth or water acts as a means
of enclosing or completing the electrical circuit, is
not yet well understood. It is one of many mar-
vels of science, well determined, yet hard to grasp
intellectually. Electrical waves or currents, call
them what you will, have been transmitted from
Ireland to Newfoundland through 2,000 miles of
copper rope not thicker than a bodkin ; these cur-
rents have found their way back through the earth,
under the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, accurately
to the spot from whence they started. How have
they found their way back again ? Has the subtle
lightning forced a path through the shortest mathe-
matical line from the spot where the copper wire
dipped into the earth at Newfoundland, to that
where the other end of the wire was buried in Ire-
land ? Are we to conceive some marvellous fluid

flowing, or some equally marvellous vibration of
particles of matter transmitted, by the shortest
route, between the two earth ends of the cable, or is
it diffused through the surface of the earth for some
unknown distance on each side of this narrow path?
Ai., we, instead of these processes,-so -hard to con-
ceive. to suppose the earth a great reservoir of neu-
tralisation for molecular disturbance, so that the

particles of the wire being disturbed by electrical
vibrations, the earth at both ends of the wire may
neutralise these vibrations, when both the ends are
in contact with it ? These are some of the scientific
speculations as to the rationale of the fact that the
earth serves asma return-wire for any lengths of
electrical cable, provided that cable be kept through-
out its whole length out of electrical communication
with the earth.
!The scientific digression is necessary to render
conceivable the fact stated by Mr. Whitehouse, that ,
the transmission of signals from Newfoundland tt'S'
Ireland continued uninterrupted, while they could
not be transmitted from rreland to Newfoundland.
If the copper rope had been completely broken
across and the ends separated from contact, no
signals could have been sent either way. But if
there existed a leakage of electricity near one of
the stations, or a diminution in the conductibility
of the wire by its attenuation, or some other cause,
a signal might be received at that station, though
it could not be transmitted from it.

The intensity of a current of electricity sent
through any length of electric wire or cable is dimi-
nished in some ratio, depending upon the length of
the wire through which it passes. The current,
which may be of great intensity as it leaves New-
foundland, becomes much weaker as it reaches Ire-
land. As it leaves Newfoundland it would perhaps
paralyse you ; as it nears Ireland you might take it
with impunity. Now, if there be an interruption or
leakage, not a total stoppage, of the electrical current
near Ireland, the current sent from Newfoundland to
Ireland might suffer a great diminution of intensity
near its destination, and yet be strong enough to
make itself manifest to the recording instrument in
Ireland. On the other hand, the current sent from
Ireland to Newfoundland, suffering a great loss of
intensity near its starting point, might not, after
its diminution of intensity, be able to record its
presence at Newfoundland.
The deep and intense interest which all must feel
in the present interruption of communication be-
tween the Old and New World must be our apology
for endeavouring to popularise an abstruse point of
science. The letter of Mr. Whitehouse is most
satisfactory in one respect—it makes us hope that
the cause of the interruption may- be from some
injury to the shore end of the cable, either near
Ireland or Newfoundland.
We cannot enter into the dissensions between
Mr. Whitehouse and the directors of the Atlantic
Telegraph Company, so long as only one side of the
question is presented to the public. All personal
discord and difference becomes insignificant when
compared with the great question now at stake.
There are numerous causes which may have pro-
duced the interruption of electrical communication.
A single hole through the gutta percha or insulat-
ing covering of the copper wire, no larger than
sufficient to allow a single hair of the head to pass
anywhere between the wire and the outer casing of
iron or the water, occurring at any point of the
whole length of two thousand miles of cable, would
produce the fatal result.
It must also be borne in mind that the mysterious
interruption for some minutes
fcommunication
between the Agamemnon and the Niagara' after
the faulty piece of rope had been
disappeared, poaired, which
p
afterwards as mysteriously disaphas never
accounted for. The raising the temperature of any
portion of the gutta percha sheath from 42 deg. to
60 or 70 might be productive of a serious inter-
ruption of the electric current. In addition to all
this, we have the extraordinary pranks of terres-
trial magnetism. The history of the preliminary
proceedings T
eeedings of the Atlantic elegraph, published
It year by the directors of the company, contains
the followiwp
the bounds
instructive.. passage :—" It is within
possibility that the perturbing
°in-
fluence of terrestrialof magnetism, especially during
the occurrence magnetic storms, may prove to a
certain extent troublesome.lt is so even on shorter
circuits. The superintendent
tl(i)f the magnetic and
meteorological department
Mr. Glashier note Roy Observatory
at Greenwich,
unfrequently finds
indications of the coincidence of s magnetic
disturbance
with failure in the
els serviceo the editor
of f of certain(it
o
lines of electric telegraph. Re t
er who suspected the officials
a provincial newspaper s
p
of a telegraph of being in league against him to
-withhold certain information which he required,
when the Greenwich self-registering instruments
were recording on their paper a perfect tornado of
magnetic oscillations, looking on their linear
and
tabulated sketch like some wondrous Alpine land
of jagged peaks and abrupt valleys.."
Whatever may be the nature of the present in-
vestigation, whether temporary or permanent, we
must remember that the great problem—against
the possibility of which so many chances of failure
seemed arrayed—of the possibility of electrical
communication between the Old World and the
New has been satisfactorily solved.—Daily Hews.

SOUTII KENSINGTON MUSEUM.—During the
week ending 4th Sept., 1858, the visitors have been as fol-
low :—On Monday, Tuesday, and Saturday, free days,
3575 - on Monday and Tuesday, free evenings, 5,289 ; n
the three students' days (admission to the public,
_6d.) 595 ;
one students' evening, Wednesday, 123; total, 9,882. From
'the opening of the Museum, 581,440.