SUB- MERGING, EXTENDING, AND LAYING DOWN SUBMARINE ELECTRIC, MAGNETIC, AND EVERY OTHER DESCRIPTION OF SUBMERGED OR IMMERSED ELECTRICAL TELEGRAPH CABLES, WIRE ROPES, AND COMBINED WIRE, GUTTA PERCHA, SPUN YARN, OR OTHER COMPOUND ELECTRICAL CABLES WHATSOEVER
Year: 1857

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Francis Higginson at the Office of
tho Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 4th November.
1857.
I, FRANCIS HIGGINSON, of Woodlands Cottage, Woodlands, in the Parish
of Eling, and County of Hampshire, Esquire, a Lieutenant in Her Majesty's
Royal Navy, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "SUB-
MERGING, EXTENDING, AND LAYING DOWN SUBMARINE ELECTRIC, MAGNETIC, AND
EVERY OTHER DESCRIPTION OF SUBMERGED OR IMMERSED ELECTRICAL TELEGRAPH
CABLES, WIRE ROPES, AND COMBINED WIRE, GUTTA PERCHA, SPUN YARN, OR OTHER
COMPOUND ELECTRICAL CABLES WHATSOEVER," to be as follows:-
A method, mode, or means with appliances of and for submerging, ex-
tending, and laying down such cables, wires, or ropes. between continents,
countries, or islands, in open seaways and great oceans; and likewise for
effecting the like purpose, object, or intent for short distances; and whether
such cables so submerged and lying under water are sustained, equilibrated, or
suspended in vast depths, from displaced water, gravity, or other causes, or
rest upon and lie along the bottom in accessible and moderate depths; and
for safely extending and laying down such cables, wires, or ropes in, across,
through, under, or by way of all oceans, seas, estuaries, channels, bays, rivers,
lakes, and inland waters of all descriptions whatsoever; that I am the sole
and true Inventor thereof, and that I carry out my said Invention as follows:-
By means of the use of an additional, auxiliary, or messenger clain or other
cable of any kind, material, substance, or description whatsoever, all important..

page_text: dangerous, or damaging strain. occasioned by or arising from the progressive
or other motion or movement of ships and vessels used for or engaged in
laying down submarine telegraph cables, and of the machinery used, erected,
or contained and carried on board such ships and vessels; is by such auxiliary
cable taken off, borne, and removed from all and every electric telegraph
cable, wire rope, or conductor, while in the process of being submerged or
laid down; and all such strain or tension thrown upon, relieved, and sustained
by the auxiliary chain or other additional cable of any kind, material, or
description of metal, hemp, fibrous texture, or other holding substance what-
soever; the ordinary iron chain cable of all sizes generally used in ships and
vessels, being the kind, sort, or description of cable, however, especially
adverted to, and sought to be secured for this novel application or purpose, in
combination with submarine electric telegraph cables, wire ropes, or con-
ductors as aforesaid. By which junction or union of a chain or other
messenger or additional auxiliary cable to the electrical cable, wire rope, or
conductor, sufficient added weight will also be attached to electric telegraph
cables as will cause them to sink immediately, whilst in the act of being paid
or running out overboard; to the depth they are adapted by specific gravity to
reach or descend to .in unfathomable, or the actual bottom in waters of
moderate depth, causing them to sink at once by such additional weight close
astern or under the vessel's counter employed in paying out such electrical
cables, wire ropes, or conductors, instead of towing with a long scope from
insufficient sinking weight, and as a consequence growing or extending at a
considerable angle from the quarter of the submerging ship or vessel, and the
ostensible course or direction on or in which she may be sailing, to the great
danger of carrying away such telegraph cables, wire ropes, or compound con-
ductors; and in addition to the weight and strength thus added and adapted
to submarine telegraph cables, wire ropes, and conductors by the use and
application of a messenger, additional, or auxiliary cable, whereby they may be
safely submerged and extended, as heretofore described; a further advantage
accrues or arises from the use of such messenger, additional, or auxiliary cable
after it has been attached, appended, affixed, or made fast in the manner
hereafter defined, to such telegraph cables, wire ropes, or compound
electrical conductors, during the time and while such telegraph cables, wire
ropes, or conductors are in the act or process of being submerged or laid down;
the said further additional advantage being an increase of electrical power
in such telegraph cables so conjoined, probably owing to some inductive
influence exercised by the auxiliary cable acting as an additional or stimu-
lating conductor, the exact nature of which influence is not yet practically or

page_text: perfectly ascertained, yet sufficient is known to show that but for the con-
sideration of extra cost, such electrical power in telegraph cables might
be greatly increased by having the auxiliary cable of copper instead of iron,
as copper is a better conductor of electricity than iron, and less liable to
corrosion. In any description of ships or vessels, steam propelled, by paddle
wheels or screws, or the motive power of which may be derived from tug
steamers lashed or secured alongside such ships or vessels, the electrical and
auxiliary iron chain or other description of cables should be carefully and
separately. coiled; the delivering hatchway for both kinds of cables being
about or near amidships. And on such ships and vessels' decks there should-
be fitted, connected' with an auxiliary small engine to heave in and pay out
cable, an apparatus consisting of a revolving drum, checked by brake straps
acting upon the periphery of such drum, for gradually regulating the delivery
of such electrical cables. And a very strong separate iron-shod windlass-like
revolving cylinder, governed by similar brake straps, palls, and rack catches,
in combination with several strong iron lever compresses and retarding nippers
and stoppers, placed along the decks at intervals between the hatchway and
bitts hereafter mentioned, round and through which delivering windlass and
compresses the chain cable should pass while being submerged or payed out
overboard. And by this iron chain auxiliary cable alone, all strain occasioned.
by the ship's motion should be sustained, borne, and regulated, allowing the
electric cable at all times to remain comparatively slack and unstrained.
About half way between the delivering hatchway for both kinds of cable and
the ship's stern, two very strong bitts should be firmly fitted, placed, and
secured just sufficiently far apart or with space between them to admit of the
free passage of both cables side by side, but yet the bitts near enough to each
other to bring the electrical and auxiliary cables, whilst passing through
betwixt them, into gentle contact with each other, the bitts being fitted with a
shipping and unshipping roller or an iron pin above the cables, to admit of
their being lifted and taken out from between the bitts and disengaged there-
from when necessary and desirable; and as soon as the two cables have passed
between the bitts close together or side by side, seamen stationed from the
bitts to the ship's stern or on the quarter deck must be prepared to pass
rapidly round both cables short copper or iron chain, or sinnet plat, laid wire.
bands or holders, just long enough to go round and embrace or hold together
both cables; such metallic or iron chain, or sinnet, wove wire bands, or bands
composed of any other material, are to be fitted at one end with either sister
hooks or loop spring hooks, adapted instantly to open and shut securely, and at
the other end of the band or strap furnished with an eye or thimble to receive

page_text: and hold the sister hooks or loop spring hooks when shut, and the band secured
round both cables. A few experienced men at intervals passing nippers in
the manner formerly practised, "thick and dry," whilst weighing with hemp
cables; such nippers in electrical cable cases being formed of sinnet, laid iron or
copper wire, as well as of rope yarns, when desirable. In the event of any strain
from pitching of the vessels or other causes suddenly accruing or taking place,
the lever .compresses situated between the delivering hatchway and the bitts,.
would, by instantly checking the iron cable, immediately take all strain off the
electrical cable; and a ship or vessel might at any time ride wholly by such
iron or other description of auxiliary cable, bridles for that purpose being of
course previously properly fitted and led aft outside all, spring on the cable
fashion. By these means submarine, telegraph, and auxiliary cables may be
safely and gradually delivered, extended, submerged, and laid down, firmly
attached to each other, so as to admit of their being sighted or re-lifted if
necessary. And the process of laying down can be effected at the rate of from
three to four miles an hour, or with great practice perhaps at a somewhat
accelerated rate, as fully explained in my proposal for laying down trans-
atlantic telegraph cables between England and America, by way of the Azores
or other more distant points and places.