The south-western. [volume] (Shreveport, La.) 1852-1870, 1866-10-10
The Old Gable.


The London Times gives the following interesting
account Of tie manner in which tie Old eaUie was
raised:
From the moment Of the fracture Of last years e.
BE till last Sunday morning the rejecting marine gal
vanometer connected with the shore end a. alenca
bas baen fncessantly watched Night and day for a
whole wear an electrician has always been on duIy,
watching the tinv raw of light through which signals
arc given and twice every day the Whoe length o.
the wire 1900 miles, has been tested Tor conGuc-
tyityn and insulation. The results OF these tests
ara almost marvellous in their uniformity, and they
slowed convuisvely that up to that point of fracture
rba cable was as rarfect as the day which left
thn v,orks-arart of course, from the Improvement
which always takes place in wire submarine IN the
cool and uniform temperature OF the great ocean
depths The object Of observing the ray OF light was,
Of confse not only expectation o! a message, but
smpIy to keep an accurate record OF the CONDITION Oh
rho wire Sometimes indeed Wild ncoherent MESA
ees from the deep did come, but these were merely the
rasuIt of magnetic storms and earth currents winch
detected the gavanomeer rapidly and spelC he most
extraordinary words, and sometimes even sentences
of nonsense upon the graduated scale before the mr.
ror Suddenly last Sunday morning, at 6:41 WINE
the light was being watched by Mr. May, ne observed
peculiar indication about the light which showed at
once to his experienced eye that message was near
at hand In few minutes afterwards the unsteady
Pickering was changed to coherency, II we may use
such term and at the cable began to speak.
The messages which have already appeared IN our
columns came with dstinctness and precision even
Greater than those Of the cable laid this year. No
rendition of word or letter necessary and few
sentences of congratulatlon were at once sent
back and as quickly responded to from the Great as-
tern by Mr.. Canning. Both the shore ends OF last
years cable and that laid this year being in the little
shanty at Foibommerum a message OF the good
news was at once sent through 10 Hearts Content and
reply wishing every good fortune to the rest OF the
enterprise was sent back Foihommerum and trans
mitted to the Great Eastern in the centre of the At
lantic within quarter of an hour. So also with the
messages announcing to the directors in London that
the cable had been raised. These, though they can
scarcely be said have left Ireland before seven ock
we're delivered in the metropolis before 9 and return
messages went back to the Great Eastern before mid
day. Now as to raising the cable itself. Ii any OF
our readers can imagine what the difficulty would be
of picking UP little rope i'll Cheapside from the top
of St. Paul's they will be able to form faint notion OF
the difficulty of lifting the wires lost last year in three
miles depth of and in the middle OF the Allan
tic Apparently, however, the Ships fitted with pro-
per apparatus found no difficulty in graphing
the cable than nigh experience in raising night
lines for cells They all caught it. and caught it when
and where they wanted. The weather was very rough
but nevertheless, the Midway, which was the first on
the ground succeeded in catching it. raising 1t partially
and buoying it. In the night, however, while heavy
sea was running, the buoy ropes gave way, and the
cable went to the bottom again. II must be remem-
bered that, from repeated soundngs taken Tor the
purposes of the telegraph, no ocean bed is so well
known to us as the bottom of the Atlantic, where the
cable was grappled for iii covered with soil com
posed literally of minute shells, of the d5atomdcea