MACHINERY OR APPARATUS FOR REGULATING OR GOVERNING THE PAYING-OUT OR DELIVERY AND LAYING DOWN OF SUBMARINE OR OCEANIC TELEGRAPH CABLES,. PARTS OF WHICH ARE ALSO APPLICABLE FOR TAKING AND RECORDING SOUNDINGS AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES
Year: 1857

page_text: by the Act.)
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Thomas Silver at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 11th September
1857.
I, THOMAS SILVER, of Philadelphia, in the State of Pensylvania, U. S.,
Gentleman, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "MACHINERY
OR APPARATUS FOR REGULATING OR GOVERNING THE PAYING-OUT OR DELIVERY AND
LAYING DOWN OF SUBMARINE OR OCEANIC TELEGRAPH CABLES,. PARTS OF WHICH ARE
ALSO APPLICABLE FOR TAKING AND RECORDING SOUNDINGS AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES,"
to be as follows:-
This Invention consists in arranging and employing certain machinery or'
apparatus, as herein-after described, for insuring instantaneous and sympathetic
yielding of the paying-out gear and apparatus, and the sufficiently rapid
delivering out of the cable from the ship, or from the paying-out machinery, to
avoid undue straining or rupture of the electric conducting wires, or of
the protective coating or the materials composing the cable, and also for
automically regulating, governing, or controling the speed of delivery of the
cable through such machinery, and to indicating and recording variations in
such speed alone or in conjunction with or relative to the positive speed of the
ship through the water, or comparatively with the indicated speed of the
engines during the same periods of time; thus insuring through a more

page_text: instantaneous and perfect knowledge of the absolute state of each part of the
operation at any instant of time, combined with the elastic construction or
perfectly yielding character of the final paying-out apparatus, and its powers of
instantaneously compensating for the variations in position or for the motion
of the ship's stern by permitting a sufficient length of cable to be suddenly
drawn out without damage to the cable or deranging the paying-out machinery,
or producing kinking in the coils or risk of injury to life and limb of those
engaged in or about the various parts of the work.
The machinery or apparatus consists, firstly, of a top and bottom piece of
framework, each fitted with groved pulleys, sheaves, or drums; these frames
are held apart at a suitable distance by means of springs, and the extent of
separation is regulated by guides or guide bars; when the bottom framing is
fixed on to the deck or in any other suitable position, the upper piece of
framing with its groved pulleys is so arranged as to be capable of descending
or approximating the other frame containing similar groved pulleys, sheaves,
or drums, to an extent according to the weight or strain applied thereto or
acting thereupon, and as the weight or strain acts against springs of suitable
strength, and disposed according to the extent of action and the variation of
work or strain to be resisted. Thus when the cable is passed under and
partially round one of the end pulleys, sheaves, or drums in the lower frame,
and passed over and partly around the groved pulley, sheave, or drum, at
the corresponding end of the top or supported frame, and so alternately under
and over the several pulleys, sheaves, or drums, and finally out of the machine
over the stern or from any other part of the ship into the sea, there will be a
considerable length of cable stored within such machine and behind the break
apparatus, and thus be available at any moment to meet any sudden variation
in the demand for quantity which may occur from the vertical motion of the
ship or the ships' stern, or from any sudden variation of the depth of the ocean.
or from any other, cause, which may affect or interfere with the uniformly
steady and strainless paying-out of the cable from the ship.. Such apparatus,
may be so fixed either vertically, as described, or horizontally if preferred.
Secondly, an atmospheric regulator or fly-govenor revolving at a suitably
high speed, and connected by a suitable train of gearing to the first pulley or
sheave which may either have a single grove, or score., turned truly in
the periphery thereof, or if preferred a spiral or helical grove may be turned
in a drum, and one or more than one entire turn of the cable may be taken
around it. To the side or axis of this drum, sheave, or pulley, the first wheel
of the fly-govenor train is attached, and the speed of hauling up, paying off,
or delivering the cable may be regulated or governed thereby, as by varying

page_text: the angle of the vanes of the fly-govenor, its resistance to the atmosphere
whilst it is revolving may be varied according to the requirements of the
varying circumstances of the speed of the ship, sudden change of depth of the
ocean, the pitching of the ship, or other operating cause of variation or
derangement, and such fly-govenor or atmospheric regulator may be acted
upon through a reacting or other spring, or by any other similar means which
may either be worked by hand or by a self-acting arrangement, operated by
the angle at which the cable as it descends to the bottom makes with the
point from which it is delivered, whether by means of passing the cable after
it leaves the ship through a tube or along a trough, or by any other means by
which the angle or direction of the cable can be defined and indicated, and be
made to operate on the fly-govenor or atmospheric regulator.
Thirdly, an index, indicator dial, or other weight measuring and recording
apparatus connected in any suitable manner and position with the moveable
framing, as by such means as to indicate the weight or strain upon such
framing at any moment, and to record it in the manner of a steam engine
indicator, may be made to record at any or every instant of time and during
the
progress of the ship's course across the ocean and over its varying depths,
by this means the various lengths or weight of cable suspended at any moment
can be indicated, and the contour or profile of the bottom of the ocean may be
correctly described and dileneated, and moreover, the same arrangement of
apparatus or a suitable modification may be applied to the taking of continuous
soundings in great depths of the ocean.