Stamp Story, No. 28 Atlantic Cable

Press, Volume C, Issue 29554, 1 July 1961, Page 8

Stamp Story, No. 28 Atlantic Cable

[By KEN ANTHONY) 'PHIS American stamp. 1 issued in 1958, officially marks the centenary of the transatlantic cable. But. strangely, it celebrates a failure. It was issued on the 100th birthday of a cable that worked for only two months. Samuel Morse, the American inventor, first suggested an Atlantic cable as early as 1843—only three years after the first practicable telegraph had been designed. It was not uhtil 1951 that the first submarine cable was laid to link England and France. So the Atlantic Telegraph Co. had an ambitious project on its hands when it was registered in 1856. From the start, it was mainly a British undertaking, although the United States! Government co-operated in the first attempt of 1857 with the loan of a ship. The expedition was a failure. Three hundred miles out. the cable snapped. In August 1853, the promoters were more successful. The cable was apparently

safely laid, and Queen Victoria exchanged greetings by telegraph with President Buchanan of the United States. That was the cable commemorated by the American stamp—but in October it failed, due to faulty insulation.

Nearly seven years passed before the next try, this time with a much improved and heavier cable. But the increased weight meant that a larger ship was required.

The solution was to use the famous Great Eastern by far the largest ship then afloat. As a passenger vessel she had proved a costly failure, dogged by misfortune; now she was to prove her worth.

The 1865 expedition was disappointing; after getting more than halfwav across, the cable parted. But in the next year, with better equip, ment, all went well. Moreover the Great Eastern prompt!'- went badk, retrieved the 1855 cable from midAtlantic. and completed the task of laying it to form a second link across the ocean. The landing of the successful cable was noted on a stamp in 1928 by Newfound, land—then a stamp-issuing country in its own right before it became part of Canada.

A stamp was produced which showed Heart's Content Bay where the cable was first brought ashore. On it was the inscription "First Trans-Atlantic Cable Landed 1866."

All we have to do now is wait and see which country will commemorate the centenary of this date.—(Central Press Feature. All Rights i Reserved.) u