IMPROVEMENTS FOR LAYING SUBAQUEOUS ELECTRICAL CABLES FOR TELE.
Year: 1857

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Thomas Landi, of 16, Rue de Boulevard Batignoles,
in Paris, and Charles Falconieri, a Civil Engineer, of 20, Charles St.,
Middlesex Hospital, in London, both native of Sicily, for the Invention
of "IMPROVEMENTS FOR LAYING SUBAQUEOUS ELECTRICAL CABLES FOR TELE.
Sealed the 22nd June 1858, and dated the 23rd December 1857.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Thomas Landi and Charles
Falconieri, at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with their
Petition, on the 23rd December 1857.
We, THOMAS LANDI, of 16, Rue de Boulevard Batignoles, in Paris, and
CHARLES FALCONIERI, a Civil Engineer, of 20, Charles St., Middlesex Hospital,
in London, both native of Sicily, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS FOR LAYING SUBAQUEOUS ELECTRICAL CABLES POR
TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATIONS," to be as follows:-
All processes hereto employed for laying subaqueous telegraphic cables
have proved to be difficult, unsafe, and seldom efficacious. To facilitate the
success, people generally had recourse to the reduction of the thickness of the
cable, with an evident injury to the strength and durability thereof. Our
process is directed principally to prevent all such inconveniences; it consists of
the following devices :-
1st. In attaching eventually to the cable instantaneously and temporaneously
some peculiar bodies, which, through their superfine or their lightness are

page_text: calculated to act as floating bodies or parachutes, to lessen the weight and the
increasing rapidity of the unfolding cable in its submersion.
2°. In order to attach such floating bodies or parachutes to the cable we
employ either a rope with a runing knot around the cable, or a nipper, or
any other contrivance capable of holding and binding it fast.
8°. To prevent any injury to the cable by allowing such floating bodies to be
attached too long time to it after its descent, we have imagined a proper
device for detaching them from the cable. The rope which will join the
floating bodies or parachutes to the cable will be divided in two sections joined
and fastened to a pivot, which is kept together into two wooden shells resem-
bling a pully. The pivot must be a rolling one in one side and a fixed one on
the other, by the means of an hard mastick, which will be dissolved under the
water in a determined length of time, and will cause the detaching of the
floating bodies. The said mastick can be employed in other ways and with
the same results as in trusses, bindings, &c.
4°. To determine the proper time for attaching such floating bodies or para-
chutes to the cable it will be employed, the well-known Watt regulator, at
centrifugal force. The vertical pole will point the degrees of velocity and the
regulator will be applied for the revolution of the drum or drums, or revolving
cylinders from which the cable is unfolded.
5°. Here we do not specify the dimensions either of the floating bodies, or
parachutes, or of the other mechanical devices, since they must be of a different
size, according to the thickness of the cable and the degrees of speed which
one intends to give to the cable in its submersion.
6°. As floating bodies can be adopted solid hogsheads expressly constructed
for the purpose; as parachutes will be used either bords or bovins, or flat
rolls of cork; or parachutes in their strict signification, and of the shape used
for areostatic balloons; they will be either of wood, or of metal, or of a strong
canvass, as it will be thought more convenient. The nipper will have in the
extremities of the handles a fastening of india-rber, which will be able to
keep it naturally closed and secured, or a kind of iron ring. The said nipper
will be clothed in the inner parts with gutta percha, to protect the cable from
any friction.
In conclusion, the nature of our Invention does not consist in small details
of practice which occasionally can be modified, but on the predominant
principle of the istantaneous and temporary application of floating bodies to
the cablo, in order to prevent its breaking.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Thomas Landi and Charles Falconieri in the Great Seal
Patent Office on the 23rd June 1858.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, wе, THOMAS
LANDI, of 16, Rue de Boulevard Batignoles, in Paris, and CHARLES FAL-
CONIERI, a Civil Engineer, of No. 20, Charles Street, Middlesex Hospital, in
London, both native of Sicily, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Twenty-third day of December, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven, in the twenty-first year of
Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto us,
the said Thomas Landi and Charles Falconieri, Her special licence that
we, the said Thomas Landi and Charles Falconieri, our executors, adminis-
trators, and assigns, or such others as we, the said Thomas Landi and
Charles Falconieri, our executors, administrators, and assigns, should at any
time agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all times there-
after during the term therein expressed, should and lawfully might make,
uše, exercise, and vend, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS
FOR LAYING SUBAQUEOUS ELECTRICAL CABLES FOR TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATIONS,"
upon the condition (amongst others) that we, the said Thomas Landi and
Charles Falconieri, or one of us, our executors or administrators, by an instru-
ment in writing under our, or their, or one of our or their hands and seals,
should particularly describe and ascertain the nature of the said Invention,
and in what manner the same was to be performed, and cause the same to be
filed in the Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar months next and.
immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that we, the said Thomas Landi and Charles Falconieri,
do hereby declare the nature of our said Invention, and in what manner
the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in
and by the following statement thereof, reference being had to the Drawings
hereunto annexed, that is to say:-
Our Invention consists in laying subaqueous electric cables for telegraphic
communication, by the means and in the manner herein-after described, in
order to execute this difficult and important operation with certainty of success.
At or near the stern of the vessel from which the cable is to be deposited
we place a large cylinder or drum, round which the cable is passed several
times, and to this drum an ordinary centrifugal indicator, similar to that shewn

page_text: in Figure 1 of the Drawings annexed; is attached. The greatest velocity which it
is thought desirable to permit the drum to attain is indicated on the vertical axis
of the indicator, this maximum velocity being proportioned to the strength of the
cable, the velocity of the ship, and other circumstances. The axis of the indi-
cator is also graduated, in order that a moveable socket sliding on this axis
may indicate the velocity with which the cable is at any moment delivered.
Wo attach to the cable a number of floats or rosisting bodies such as empty
barrels, Figure 2; inflated bags, pieces of cork, planks of wood, Figure 3;
plates of iron connected together with a rope or ropes, Figure 4, or any other
bodies suitably formed to resist the drag of the cable through the water, and
thus to check its velocity. The ropes may be made of two pieces connected
together in different ways by means of a cement, solid in air but soluble in
water. We also employ pincer or spring fastenings,
which the ends of the
rope which is affixed to the resisters can be very easily attached to the cable.
It will be easy to ascertain the dimensions which should be given to the
floats, plauks, &c. by aid of the following principles:-
1st, the weight removed from the cable by the addition of a floating body of
a certain size, will be equal to that of a like volume of water.
2nd, the retarding force exerted by the addition of a resisting surface is
equal to the area of that surface multiplied by the square of the speed,
multiplied by a constant coefficent.
3rd, the resistance caused by the ropes, pincers, and other auxiliary parts
is equal to the area of their smallest transverse section multiplied by the
coefficient of the resistance to traction, corresponding to the material.
4th, the durability of the solid form of the cement must be regulated
according to the time the various bodies are required to be attached to the
cable.
The cement employed is glue, gum, dextrine, or other analogous substance,
used alone or combined with other materials. The delivery of the cablo from
the drum is regulated by simply attaching the floating or resisting bodies
before described to the cable as soon as it leaves the drum, whenever the indi-
cator shews that the velocity of the drum is approaching its maximum. The
floating bodies reduce or counteract to a certain extent the weight of the
cable, whilst the resisting surface attached to the cable reduco its speed.
By the employment of these floating and resisting bodies, a very heavy cable
can be laid with the same facility and security as a light one, and as the cable
can be kept on the surface for some time until the floats become detached of
their own accord by the solution of the cement, a cable can bo laid as safely
and speedily in deep as in shallow wators. If it is considered requisite, the

page_text: brakes now usually employed for regulating the speed at which the cable
leaves the ship can also be used in combination with our improvements.
In order to ascertain with certainly the tension of the cable, we employ an
indicator in addition to the indicator used, to shew the speed at which the
cable is leaving the ship. The journals in which the drum works are made
slightly moveable on their supports, and a spring or a lever furnished with a
weight acts constantly on them to keep them in their places. The displace-
ment of this lever, or spring, or of the journals being marked on a graduated
dial, will furnish the required indications of the degrees of tension which the
cable exerts.
Figure 1 of the Drawings hereunto annexed is a view of the indicator cm-
ployed to denote the velocity of the drum, round which the cable is wound.
Tho motion of this drum is communicated to the pulley p, fixed on the shaft
on which are marked the graduations. Figure 2 is a view of a cask or barrel
encircled with iron hoops, having an iron ring attached to it at or about the
middle to receive the rope by which it is to be attached to the cable. Figure 3
is a view of a plank, to the angles of which are attached cords which meet in a
single knot, in order that the plank may always descend in a horizontal
position.
If these plates are in iron
Figure 4 is a view of two discs of wood or iron, having holes through the
centre, through which a cord is passed; the discs being kept at suitable dis-
tances apart by means of knots made in the rope.
and furnished on one side with a slightly inclined plane, they will afford means
of preventing the displacement of the cable by a transverse current. Figure 5
shews a barrel attached to a cable. p is the floating body; d, the apparatus
used for detaching the cord; a, the apparatus for attaching it to the cable;
and c, the cable. Figure 6 illustrates the arrangement which we adopt for
detaching the rope from the cable; two ends of the rope are untwisted and
interwoven, and afterwards surrounded by cotton bands covered with cement.
Figure 7 illustrates another method of effecting the same object. An egg-
shaped piece of wood, flattened at the ends, has a vertical hole a, b, c, d, formed
in it from one end to the other. It has also a horizontal hole which does not
go through it. In the first hole, the two ropes P, C, placed side by side as in
Figure 8, are introduced; they form in the middle of the hole a kind of ring,
into which a small cylinder of plastic material is introduced, which acts as a
pivot and holds the two knots together. This pivot is held firm by a block of
wood e, which being forced into the same hole, holds it quite tight.
Figure 9 shews a similar arrangement to Figure 7, only the wood instead
of being in one piece is in two halves, which are joined together by screws.

page_text: In this Figure the pivot is in iron and capable of folding down about a pin or
centre, and thus releasing the rope, when the cement c, which fills the cavity
in which it turns, becomes dissolved.
Figure 10 shews a piece of wood hollowed out conically inside; a hole i, y
is bored through it, and the rope P is placed in this hole and fastened by a
knot; the other rope terminates in an iron button held in the cavity by the
cement c.
Figures 7, 9, and 10 are drawn in section; the crossed parts indicate the
wood, and the dotted lines the cement. Figure 11 shews a running knot,
which may be used as a means of attachment to the cable, but this may be
varied at will.
Figures 12 and 12 bis shew respectively in front and side views the pincers
referred to in the former part of this Specification. a is the axis of the
pincers, and is terminated on one side by a thick head through which the ring
b passes, to which ring the rope of tho float or resister is tied; c is a steel
spring which carries a stop d, and prevents the pincers from re-opening after
having been closed; c, e, are the jaws of the pincers, one of which is elbowed,
to prevent the pincers from opening more than is necessary; f is a tube which
opens in two halves, to receive and embrace the cable for a certain length.
This tube is movable round the pivots g, in order that it may follow all the
motions of the cable. Each half of this tube at the end of the lower side is
prolonged outside into two arched portions k, which cross each other; their
object is to occupy the space which is left at the bottom of the tube by the
motion of its two parts about g, when the pincers open to receive tho
cable. In this case the arched portions prevent the cable from forcing itself
too far into the pincers, and keep it in the place where it is to be received
and held.
Figure 13 is a view of another form of pincers, which may be employed
with advantage. a is the axis; b, b, are holes in which the rope of the float
or resister passes; c is a spring catch; d, d, are the legs of the pincers.
Figure 14 is a view of a spring collar, which may conveniently be used for
rapidly embracing the cable; it is formed of a steel spring furnished with
catches and an eye intended to hold the rope.
Figure 15 is a view of an elastic spring hook. Figuro 16 is a view of a
slightly flexible wooden stick furnished at both ends with bends or hooks
opposed to one another, and with an eye in the middle to which the ropo is
attached. This stick is intended to be twisted round the cable and be held
partly by its torsion and partly by its flexibility, the two hooks preventing it
from becoming released.

page_text: We do not limit ourselves to the exact form of the floating bodies or resist-
ing surfaces, or to the precise methods of attaching the various parts to and
detaching them from the cable, as the same may be varied without departing
from the essential features of our Invention.
And having now described the nature of our said Invention, and in what
manner the same is to be performed, we declare that we claim,--
First, the application of floating bodies and resisting surfaces to assist in
the laying of subaqueous electrical cables, together with the methods of
attaching and detaching the same, essentially as herein-before described and
illustrated in the Drawings annexed.
Second, the application of an indicator or indicators to show the velocity
and the tension of the cable, as herein-before described and illustrated in the
Drawings annexed.
In witness whereof, we, the said Thomas Landi and Charles Falconieri,
have hereunto set our hand and seal, this Twelfth day of June, in
the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-eight.
Witness,
CH. ARMENGAUD,
THOMAS LANDI.
(L.S.)
CHARLS FALCONIERI. (L.S.)
Ing" Conseil,
No. 23, Boulev, de Strasbourg.