IMPROVED APPARATUS FOR LAYING SUBMARINE TELEGRAPH CABLES
Year: 1858

page_text: application for Letters Patent was. not given within the time prescribed
by the Act.)
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Alfred Vincent Newton at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 16th
February 1858.-A communication.
I, ALFRED VINCENT NEWTON, of the Office for Patents, 66, Chancery Lane,
5 in the County of Middlesex, Mechanical Draughtsman, do hereby declare the
nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVED APPARATUS FOR LAYING SUBMARINE
TELEGRAPH CABLES," to be as follows:-
The object of this Invention is to obtain some more certain and uniformly
operative method of retarding the paying out of the cable when it is drawn
out from the vessel by its own weight than the ordinary method, consisting in
the use of friction brakes, and also to provide automatic means of controlling
the velocity of the paying-out apparatus, that it may be always in proportion.
to the requirements of the speed of the vessel from which the cable is payed
out through the water, and the depth of the sea.
The Invention consists, firstly, in the employment of one or more rotary
pumps attached to or geared with the shaft or shafts of the paying-out drums,
so as to be driven by the movement of the said drum or drums produced by
the paying out of the cable, the said pump or pumps having its or their
discharge pipe or pipes of small capacity in proportion to the capacity of the
pump or pumps and of the suction pipe or pipes thereof, that by the continual
drawing and forcing of water or other incompressible fluid by the pump a

page_text: considerable amount of force may be consumed, and hence the rotary motion
of the drums may be retarded.
Water may be drawn by the pump from the sea and returned thereto, or
water or other fluid may be drawn from and returned to a reservoir on board
the vessel:
The Invention further consists in an automatic regulating apparatus for
controlling the area of opening of a cock or valve in the discharge pipe or
pipes, so that more or less force may be consumed by the operation of the
pump or pumps, according as the velocity of the drum or drums may require
to be more or less retarded. This apparatus consists of a bent or curved
slotted lever, whose fulcrum is a shaft, by the oscillatory motion of which on
its axis the opening of the cock or valve is varied, and of a travelling carriage
which carries a pulley or drum round or in contact with which the cable
passes after leaving the paying-out drum or drums, and which is so governed
by weights or their equivalents that it is made to travel back and forth by any
variation in the drag or strain on the cable produced by variations in the
speed of the vessel or in the depth of the sea, or by the pitching of the vessel,
the said carriage being furnished with an arm or stud which travels in the
bent or curved slot of the lever and operates therein to move the lever, and
thereby to vary the opening of the cock or valve.
The Invention further consists in constructing each of the paying-out drums
(when provided with more than one groove to permit of the cable passing
more than once round) of sheaves, each groove being a separate sheave, and
one of the sheaves being fast to the shaft of the drum while the others are
loose thereon, but clamped to the fast sheave so as to produce a considerable
amount of friction between them. By this means, if one of the grooves, or
that part of the drum round which one portion of the cable is passing, should
have been accidentally constructed of rather less or greater circumference than
the other grooves or parts of the drum, or should have its circumference
increased by the adhesion of pitch or other material that may be employed as
a coating for the cable, the production of any undue strain on the cable
thereby may be obviated by the slipping of one or more of the sheaves.