The Washington union. [volume] (City of Washington [D.C.]) 1857-1859, 1859-04-03
rHE ATLANTc rELEeRARH cABLE


To he Editors Of De Journal Of C6uapaes
The subject Of the Atlantic telegraph being again before
the public would beg leave 10 make few remarks on
the of It's failure and suggest the whereby
IL may be made 10 work successfully would wish II
understood however that my conclusions TO its sue
based the assumption that there had been
electrical effects produced through the present cable Ia
king that 20 be fact then my conclusions may be relied
Upon for they not based upon theories but Sctua
knowledge obtained la experimenting with the battery
upon conductors of different sizes and conditions Al
though my experiments not made with reference 10
telegaphng they nevertheless proved what desired Ia
the present emergency namely what is the law that
governs conductors OF electricity la circuits OF great
lengthr The result of the experiments made with the
present cable so far ascertain from what has
been made public through the papers prove that currents
of electricity be obtained through IT, but they
feeble that they useless for the practical purposes OF
eiegraphing Now, why Is it answer that II is be-
the copper wire used for the conductor Is too small
for great length aud that the form adopted in its
construction, making IL in several small wires, has IN
creased lis ineticiency very materially Had the same
weight of metal yard been In one single strand OF
wre very different and favorable result would
have been had Electricity like water has resistance
Ia Its passage through conductor caused by friction
The degree of resistance in the two elements great
but still there is friction and consequent resistance
in electricity. Here lies the trouble with the pres
emit cable The battery has not the power to overcome
the resistance incident to conductor OF small size
and great length II has been serious misfortune
to the Atlantic Telegraph Company, well Ms q disap
was not used In the construction of the cable.
No copper wire, or larger size, had been used
for the construction, the Atlantic Telegraph would now
be in successful operation The adoption of the plan of
several small wires for the present conductor only
be accounted for this suppostion that they acted
the theory therefore, held that the amount of surface pre-
sented determined the amount of conducting power
Now, this theory is faacious and be 80 easily proved
that one would have supposed that experiments would
have been made to test 1t before hazardng great an
enterprise With reference to the possibility of working
with the present conductor think ii barely possible that
it can be done but il would be at great cost both in
the outlay for batteries and current cost of supply of
acids zinc &C. There need be fear OF njuring the
cable by the application of powerful battery. All the
batteries in existence will not harm It, simply because
you cannot get enough electricity through it to do IL
would require thousand times electricity to pass
through it to harm it than is necessary to operate their
instruments successfully SO long they cannot get
sufficient electricity through the cable to work their in
struments there is fear for its saety Suppose the
engineers of the Croon aqueduct had placed pipe say
twenty inches in diameter, to bring the water from
the Croon river TO the city The result would have been
that uy small drizzDg stream would have reached the
city, owing to the friction incident to passing the water
through long pipe. The difficulty could in this case
be overcome by supplying sufficient power to force the re-
qured quantity of water through the pipe, but it would
be apparent to any business that such way OF
| curing difficulty poutd not pay.
Apply the above figure to the present cable and you
have about the rationale of trying to use it,
To any doubt about the cause OF failure of the
pIeSeIt W seltc 4ucbtioh oho
be made would propose making three four expert
] mental tests.
lst Take mile of the present cable.
I'd. The same length of No. l6 copper wire.
Sd. The same length of No. iron wire.
| 4th. The same length of No. copper wire.
Now place each of those alternately in the circuit be-
tween battery aud electro magnet of suitable size
the attractive force manifested in the magnet will give
the relative conducting power of each to the other
The first will show but feeble action the second will
be better, although No l6 wire has less than onc-ha
the surface of the first and will settle the theory OF
face being a necessary condition. The third will show
that the Great Atlantic telegraph cable has less conduct
ing power than the common lines used here for
parativey short circuits The fourth, when compared
with the first, will show effect vastly superior, all
doubts about the practicaby of the enterprise will
| ish. j. S. G. .
WORCESTER, March "a, 1859. ....