page_title: Transatlantic telegraph cable
section_title: First transatlantic cable
hierarchical_section_title: Transatlantic telegraph cable / First transatlantic cable
caption_attribution_description: US postage stamp, 1958.
context_page_description: Transatlantic telegraph cables were undersea cables running under the Atlantic Ocean used for telegraph communications. Telegraphy is now an obsolete form of communication and the cables have long since been decommissioned, but telephone and data are still carried on other transatlantic telecommunications cables. The first cable was laid across the floor of the Atlantic from Telegraph Field, Foilhommerum Bay, Valentia Island in western Ireland to Heart's Content in eastern Newfoundland. The first communications occurred August 16, 1858, reducing the communication time between North America and Europe from ten days—the time it took to deliver a message by ship—to a matter of minutes.
  Cyrus West Field and the Atlantic Telegraph Company were behind the construction of the first transatlantic telegraph cable. The project began in 1854 and was completed in 1858. The cable functioned for only three weeks, but it was the first such project to yield practical results. The first official telegram to pass between two continents was a letter of congratulations from Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom to President of the United States James Buchanan on August 16.
context_section_description: The cable consisted of seven copper wires, each weighing 26 kg/km (107 pounds per nautical mile), covered with three coats of gutta-percha (as suggested by Jonathan Nash Hearder), weighing 64 kg/km (261 pounds per nautical mile), and wound with tarred hemp, over which a sheath of 18 strands, each of seven iron wires, was laid in a close helix. It weighed nearly 550 kg/km (1.1 tons per nautical mile), was relatively flexible and was able to withstand a pull of several tens of kilonewtons (several tons).
  The cable from the Gutta Percha Company was armoured separately by wire rope manufacturers, as was the usual practice at the time.  In the rush to proceed, only four months were allowed for completion of the cable.  As no wire rope maker had the capacity to make so much cable on that timescale, the task was shared by two English firms – Glass, Elliot & Co., of Greenwich, and R.S. Newall and Company, of Birkenhead. Late in manufacturing it was discovered that the respective sections had been made with strands twisted in opposite directions.  This meant that the two sections of cable could not be directly spliced wire-to-wire as the iron wire on both cables would unwind when it was put under tension during laying.  The problem was easily solved by splicing through an improvised wooden bracket to hold the wires in place, but the mistake subsequently became magnified in the public mind.
  The British government gave Field a subsidy of £1,400 a year (£130,000 today) and loaned ships for cable laying and support. Field also solicited aid from the U.S. government. A bill authorizing a subsidy was submitted in Congress. The subsidy bill passed the Senate by a single vote, due to opposition from protectionist senators. In the House of Representatives, the bill encountered similar resistance, but passed, and was signed by President Franklin Pierce.
  The first attempt, in 1857, was a failure. The cable-laying vessels were the converted warships HMS Agamemnon and USS Niagara borrowed from their respective governments.  Both ships were needed as neither was sufficient to hold 2,500 miles of cable alone.  The cable was started at the white strand near Ballycarbery Castle in County Kerry, on the southwest coast of Ireland, on August 5, 1857. The cable broke on the first day, but was grappled and repaired; it broke again over the Telegraph Plateau, nearly 3,200 m (2 statute miles) deep, and the operation was abandoned for the year.  300 miles of cable had been lost, but the 1,800 miles remaining was still sufficient to complete the task.  Also in this period, Morse clashed with Field, was removed from the board, and took no further part in the enterprise.
  The problems with cables breaking were largely due to difficulty controlling the tension of the cable with the braking mechanism as the cable was payed out.  A new mechanism was designed and successfully trialed in the Bay of Biscay with Agamemnon in May 1858.  On June 10, Agamemnon and Niagara set sail to try again.  Ten days out they found themselves in a severe storm and the enterprise was nearly brought to a premature end.  The ships were top heavy with cable that could not all fit in the hold and struggled not to capsize.  Ten sailors were hurt and Thomson's electrical cabin was flooded. The vessels arrived at the middle of the Atlantic on June 25 and spliced cable from the two ships together.  Agamemnon paid out eastwards towards Valentia Island, Niagara payed out westward towards Newfoundland.  Again the cable repeatedly broke.  The first time after less than 5.5 km (three nautical miles), again after some 100 km (54 nautical miles) and for a third time when about 370 km (200 nautical miles) of cable had run out of each vessel.
  The expedition returned to Queenstown, County Cork, Ireland.  Some directors were in favour of abandoning the project and selling off the cable, but Field persuaded them to keep going.  The ships set out again on July 17 and the middle splice was finished on July 29, 1858. The cable ran easily this time. Niagara arrived in Trinity Bay, Newfoundland on August 4
caption: A U.S. postage stamp issued to commemorate the Atlantic cable centenary
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