The Battery and the Boiler: Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables Read online

  CHAPTER TWO.

  REFERS TO A NOTABLE CHARACTER.

  Sparks, as a rule, are looked upon as a race of useless and disreputablefellows. Their course is usually erratic. They fly upward, downward,forward, and backward--here, there, and everywhere. You never know whenyou have them, or what will be their next flight. They often create agood deal of alarm, sometimes much surprise; they seldom do any good,and frequently cause irreparable damage. Only when caught andrestrained, or directed, do sparks become harmless and helpful.

  But there is one Spark in this world--a grand, glowing, gushing fellow--who has not his equal anywhere. He is old as the hills--perhaps older--and wide as the world--perchance wider. Similar to ordinary sparks insome respects, he differs from them in several important particulars.Like many, he is "fast," but immeasurably faster than all other sparksput together. Unlike them, however, he submits to be led by masterminds. Stronger than Hercules, he can rend the mountains. Fleeter thanMercury, he can outstrip the light. Gentler than Zephyr, he can assumethe condition of a current, and enter our very marrow without causingpain. His name is Electricity. No one knows what he is. Somephilosophers have said that he is a fluid, because he flows. As wellmight they call him a wild horse because he bolts, or a thief because helurks! We prefer to call him a Spark, because in that form only is hevisible--at least when handled by man.

  Talking of that, it was not until the last century that master mindsfound out how to catch and handle our Spark. In all the previouscenturies he had been roaming gaily about the world in perfect freedom;sometimes gliding silently to and fro like an angel of light; sometimesleaping forth with frightful energy in the midst of raging tempest, likea destructive demon--ripping, rending, shattering all that attempted toarrest his course. Men have feared and shunned him since the beginningof time, and with good reason, for he has killed many of the human race.

  But although uncaught and untamed by them, our Spark was not altogetherunknown to the ancients. So far back as the year 600 before theChristian era, Thales, one of the Greek sages, discovered that he hidhimself in amber, a substance which in Greek is named _electron_--hencehis name Electricity; but the ancients knew little about his character,though Thales found that he could draw him from his hiding-place byrubbing him with silk and some other substances. When thus rubbed hebecame attractive, and drew light creatures towards him--not unlikehuman sparks! He also showed himself to be fickle, for, after holdingthese light creatures tight for a brief space, he let them go andrepelled them.

  It was not till the days of good Queen Bess, towards the end of thesixteenth century, that a Dr Gilbert discovered that the wild fellowlay lurking in other substances besides amber--such as sulphur, wax,glass, etcetera. It is now known that Electricity permeates allsubstances more or less, and only waits to be roused in order to exhibithis amazing powers. He is fond of shocking people's feelings, and hassurprised his pursuers rather frequently in that way. Some of them,indeed, he has actually shocked to death!

  It would take a huge volume to give a detailed account of all thequalities, powers, and peculiarities of this wild Spark. We will justtouch on a few facts which are necessary to the elucidation of our tale.

  A great event in the world's history happened in the year 1745. It wasnothing less than the capture and imprisonment of wild, daring, dashingElectricity. To the Dutch philosophers belongs the honour of catchinghim. They caught him--they even bottled him, like ordinary spirits, andcalled his prison a _Leyden Jar_.

  From that date our Spark became the useful and obedient slave of man.Yet is he ever ready, when the smallest conceivable door, hole, or chinkis left open, to dash out of the prison-house man has made for him, andescape into his native earth.

  He has no hope now, however, of escaping altogether, for he cannotresist the allurement of rubbing, by which, as well as by chemicalaction and other means, we can summon him, like the genii of Aladdin'slamp, at any moment, from the "vasty deep," and compel him to do ourwork.

  And what sort of work, it may be asked, can this volatile fellowperform? We cannot tell all--the list is too long. Let us consider afew of them. If we fabricate tea-pots, sugar-basins, spoons, oranything else of base metal, he can and will, at our bidding, cover thesame with silver or yellow gold. If we grow dissatisfied with ourcandles and gas, he will, on being summoned, and properly directed bythe master minds to whom he owns allegiance, kindle our lamps and fillour streets and mansions with a blaze of noonday splendour. If we growweary of steam, and give him orders, he will drive our tram-cars andlocomotives with railway speed, _minus_ railway smoke and fuss. He is avery giant in the chemist's laboratory, and, above all, a swiftmessenger to carry the world's news. Even when out and raging to andfro in a wild state, more than half-disposed to rend our mansions, andsplit our steeples, and wreck our ships, we have only to provide himwith a tiny metal stair-case, down which he will instantly glide fromthe upper regions to the earth without noise or damage. Shakespearenever imagined, and Mercury never accomplished, the speed at which hetravels; and he will not only carry our news, or express our sentimentsand wishes far and wide over the land, but he will rush with them, overrock, sand, mud, and ooze, along the bottom of the deep deep sea!

  And this brings us to a point. Some of the master minds beforementioned, having conceived the idea that telegraphic communicationmight be carried on under water, set about experimenting. Between theyears 1839 and 1851 enterprising men in the Old World and the Newsuggested, pondered, planned, and placed wires under water, along whichour Spark ran more or less successfully.

  One of the difficulties of these experiments consisted in this, that,while the Spark runs readily along one class of substances, he cannot,or will not, run along others. Substances of the first class,comprising the metals, are called conductors; those of the second class,embracing, among other things, all resinous substances, are stylednon-conductors. Now, water is a good conductor. So that although theSpark will stick to his wires when insulated on telegraph-posts on land,he will bolt from them at once and take to flight the moment he getsunder water. This difficulty was overcome by coating the wires withgutta-percha, which, being a non-conductor, imprisoned the Spark, andkept him, as it were, on the line.

  A copper wire covered in this manner was successfully laid betweenEngland and France in 1850. When tested, this cable did not work well.Minute imperfections, in the form of air-holes in the gutta-percha,afforded our Spark an opportunity to bolt; and he did bolt, as a matterof course--for electricity has no sense of honour, and cannot be trustednear the smallest loop-hole. The imperfections were remedied; the doorwas effectually locked, after which the first submarine cable ofimportance was actually laid down, and worked well. French and Englishbelievers turned up hands and eyes in delighted amazement, as they heldconverse across the sea, while unbelievers were silenced and confounded.

  This happy state of things, however, lasted for only a few hours.Suddenly the intercourse ceased. The telegraphists at both endsenergised with their handles and needles, but without any result. Thecable was dumb. Our Spark had evidently escaped!

  There is no effect without a cause. The cause of that interruption wassoon discovered.

  Early that morning a French fisherman had sauntered down to the port ofBoulogne and embarked in his boat. A British seaman, having nothing todo but smoke and meditate, was seated on a coil of rope at the time,enjoying himself and the smells with which that port is not unfamiliar.He chanced to be a friend of that French fisherman.

  "You're early afloat, Mounseer," he said.

  "Oui, monsieur. Vill you com'? I go for feesh."

  "Well, _wee_; I go for fun."

  They went accordingly and bore away to the northward along the coastbefore a light breeze,--past the ruined towers which France had built toguard her port in days gone by; past the steep cliffs beyond Boulogne;past the lovely beach of Wimereux, with its cottages nestled among thesand-hills, and its silted-up harbour, whence Napoleon
the First hadintended to issue forth and descend on perfidious Albion--but didn't;past cliffs, and bays, and villages further on, until they brought upoff Cape Grisnez. Here the Frenchman let down his trawl, and fished up,among other curiosities of the deep, the submarine cable!

  "Behold! fat is dis?" he exclaimed, with glaring eyes, uplifted brows,shoulders shrugged, hands spread out, and fingers expanded.

  "The sea-sarpint grow'd thin," suggested the Englishman.

  "Non; c'est seaveed--veed de most 'strordinair in de vorld. Oui,donnez-moi de hache, de hax, mon ami."

  His friend handed him the axe, wherewith lie cut off a small portion ofthe cable and let the end go. Little did that fisherman know that hehad also let our Spark go free, and cruelly dashed, for a time at least,the budding hopes of two nations--but so it was. He bore his prize intriumph to Boulogne, where he exhibited it as a specimen of rare seaweedwith its centre filled with gold, while the telegraph clerks at bothends sat gazing in dismay at their useless instruments.

  Thus was the first submarine electric cable destroyed. And with thedetails of its destruction little Robin was intimately acquainted, forcousin Sam had been a member of the staff that had worked thattelegraph--at least he had been a boy in the office,--and in after yearshe so filled his cousin's mind with the importance of that cable, andthe grandeur and difficulty of the enterprise, that Robin becamepowerfully sympathetic--so much so that when Sam, in telling the story,came to the point where the Frenchman accomplished its destruction,Robin used to grieve over it as though he had lost a brother, or akitten, or his latest toy!

  We need scarcely add that submarine cable telegraphy had not receivedits death-blow on that occasion. Its possibility had been demonstrated.The very next year (1851) Mr T.R. Crampton, with Messrs. Wollaston,Kuper, and others, made and laid an improved cable between Dover andCalais, and ere long many other parts of the world were connected bymeans of snaky submarine electric cables.