The Sun.
London, England, 1857-09-03 00:00:00

TELEGRAPH

(From the New York Times.)
Years ago people asked " Cui bono 1" when thou-
sands were expended on expeditions the only re-
turns of which were a handful of shells and a few
casts of the deep sea lead ;—yet it is on the accu-
racy of these returns that the project is now being
hazarded. The bottom of the sea has bean care-
fully surveyed and mapped, with all its variety of
mountain and prairie land, its telegraphic plateau
and its deep hollows, where no lead has ever found
bottom. The soil, too, from the bottom has been
brought up and analyzed, and has revealed many
curious phenomena pertaining to these sunless
depths,. The ocean bed of the North Atlantic is a
curious study ; in some parts furrowed by currents,
in others presenting banks, the accumulations per-
haps of the debris of these ocean rivers during
countless ago,. To the west, the Gulf Sireatn pours
along a bed from one m,le to a mile and a half in
depth. To the east of this, and south of the Great
Beaks, is a basin, eight or ten degrees square,
where the bottom attains a greater depression than
perhaps the highest peaks of the Andes or klinaa-
laya,—six miles of line hove failed to retch the
bottom ; but of this more presently. Taking a pro-
file of th Atlantic basinin our own latitude, we find
a far greater depression than any mountain eleva-
tion ou our own continent. Four or five Alleghaniss
would have to be piled on each other, and on them
added Fremont's peak, before their point would
show itself above the surface. Between the Azores
and the mouth of the Tagus this decreases to about
three miles. Further north there is au apparent
decrease of depth, with increasing regularity of
bottom, though, it is pre ema,tioal Whether this is
not owing to the greater accuracy with which ,these
observations have been conduoted. This apparent
rise has been called the " Telegraphic Plateau," or
as articles emanating from the observatory would
have it, "Maury's Plateau" (lucus a nem, &c.)
This appears to be the natural route for the Trans-
atlantic Telegraph. Other plans have been pro-
posed—one a northing circuit, between the several
points of Scotland, Iceland, Gr&euland, and the
Labrador coast, each span be ng some 500 miles, or
to use ono or two of the island groups of the At-
lantic. In the route selected we have many advan-
tages—convenient harbours at either terminus ; a
depth of water at every point sufficient to place the
wire beyond the reach of any surface causes, such
as ice or the anchor of any ship, yet not at an im-
practicable depth, being at the shoalost several
hundred feet, and in mid-Atlantis not materially
over two miles. During a thousand miles of its
course the gradual depression of the ocean bed does
not exceed 500 fathoms. On either side lie Ireland
and Newfoundland, the breastwork of either conti-
nent, approaching within 1700 miles, and forming
the natural termini of its route. Trinity Bay is its
western head, and Valentia Bay, on the south-
western pofnt of Ireland, its eastern. This, then,
is the bed on which the telegraphic cable is to lie,
an unbroken prairie land, extending from continent
to continent. Let us now see the nature of this
bed.

Spec:mens of the bottom, when subjected to a
powerful glass, exhibit delicate shells and infusoria,
fragile as if carved in eggshell, yet as perfect in all
their delicate formation as any of the more durable
works of nature. The least attrition would crumble
all this to powder. The inference is, that all agi-
tation of winds and currents is confined
to the surface, and that at those sonless depths the
great mass of water remains in almost a quieicent
state, and that the telegraphic wire, if once laid in
safety, would lie for ever beyond the reach of harm,
sinking among and covered by these fleecy particles.
Acl this may be incorrect, but we have strong rea-
-ons for the supposition. If so, can it ever be laid
in safety ? Some abortive efforts at deep-sea sound-
ings furnish curious data for our belief in its practi-
cability. Miles of a sm all it ou wire not thicker than
a child's little finger were actually laid at the bot-
tom of the ocean, and recovered unbroken at a con-
siderably greater depth than any found on the pla-
teau. The modus operandi of laying the cable was
here performed with a wire of but a fractional part
of the strength and fitness of that proposed. The
wire laid by the British in the B'ack Sea was, how-
ever, not of greater size of stiangth than this. The
experiment of laying the wire is performed in deep-
sea sounding whenever a wire is substituted for the
ordinary sounding line. With the depth known,
with the character of the bottom known, with a
cable as plastic as rope, yet with a tenacity capable
of sustaining four miles of its length in air, and al-
most any extent in water, with I iur of the finest
ships in the world for laying it, aided by the de arly-
bought experience gained in the submersion of half
a dozen other lines, we have every reason for our
behalf that the Atlantic Telegraph will be a success.
Let us now see by whom, and in what manner,
were these explorations made, and whether they are
worthy of the confidence placed in their accuracy by
the Telegraph Company.
Lieut. Maury has up to this time enjoyed a mo-
nopoly of the reputation derivable from them, and
his own name has been linked to the telegraphic
plateau, the existence of which was first rendered
probable, and afterwards certain, by the labours of
other persons. This rather questionable reputation
would now be left undisturbed did he not now
essay to knock away the scaffolding by which he
has risen, and to throw discredit on those very re-
searches the fruit of which he has so abundanily
reaped. Lieutenant Maury
has only been the
medium by which the labours of other officers have
been made public. The only explorations made by
our own Government at all bearing on this fiield
are those of Lieutenant Berryman in the Dolphin
the surveys of the
in 1853, and in the Arctic during the past autumn,
when sent out by the
_Navy Department to examine
the telegraphic route. That
Dolphin were as accurate as the imperfect appa-
ratus then in use would permit is admitted by
Maury, who bestowed on them the highest praise.
It only remains, then, to examine the returns ot
the Arctic which have been questioned by him,
both officially
in scientific lectures, and in the
public press. Before doing this, the public must
understand the several modes of making deep sea
soundings, on the relative merits of which the whole
question hinges.
The old system is, with a small line marked at
distances of 100 fathoms, and with a weight of 30
or 50 pounds, the depth being told by the length
of line run out. This is, of course, the most
natural apparatus that suggests itself, and hasbeen
in use from the earliest ages. Experience has
given directions for its use, avoiding some of the
grosser causes of error from drifting and other
causes. Yet its success in immense ocean depths
is problematical, and a problem decided in
the negative by very many of the first
scientific authorities at home and abroad. In
the mechanical improvements of the last half-
centui y substitutes for this simple but rather uncer-
tain method began to be devised. It was proposed
to ascertain the depth by the amount of pressure,
or by explosions under water, with other equally
impracticable plane. At last was noticed the perfect
regularity of the movements of of a spirally-shaped
wheel, on being drawn through the water. Expe-
riments proved that this regularity, when unaffected
by other causes, could be relied on with perfect
accuracy, and that an arrangement of cog-wheels
would register its revolutions with mathematical
precision. Very soon it came in use as a ship's log.
So perfect was their precision, that they were oven
introduced in scientific surveys. Base lines, where
the nicest accuracy is required, were run with them,
and we have the highest authority of the Royal
Navy for believing that they never failed. At this
point it was proposed to apply them in a perpendi-
cular as well as in a horizontal motion through the
water, Massey's- apparatus premising to solve those
problems of submarine geography left unsolved by
the old method of obtaining depth with a simple
line and sinker, and this more especially as some
causes of error, considerable on the surface, disap-
pear in the still water below.
After a more thorough trial of the old method
than, perhaps, any officer in the service, Lieut.
Berryman proposed to explore the Telegraphic Pla-
teau with the use of Massey's apparatus, in opposi-
tion to the opinion of Lieut. Maury, who, follow-
ing the traditions of the service, was attached to
the old system of line and ball. Many tradi
tions are stubborn things, and the new method
has met, of course, with all that opposition un-
avoidable on the introduction of an improvement
which, though known for years abroad, is a
novelty among our own people. But, though its
use was new, its principle was no novelty to
Lieutenant Maury, who years ago was quite in love
with the beautiful simplicity, and copied it as his
own invention into a late edition of his Sailing
Directioi,s, with the assurance that it "works beau-
fully." This would not be referred to did not
Maury's present attack on the soundings made with
Massey's apparatus now make it necessary to quote
him among the many authorities in its favour.
The manner of obtaining depth from the Arctic
was with the two methods used in conjunction,—to
sound with a simple line and ball, giving an ap-
proximation to the depth, but trusting for the nicer
shades of accuracy tco the reaclinetS ot Massey's in-