ROMANCE OF ATLANTIC CABLE

Evening Star, Issue 21904, 15 December 1934, Page 21

ROMANCE OF ATLANTIC CABLE

The perfection of overseas communication tp-day, permitting even the transmission of photographs, recalls the laying of the first Atlantic cable—an epochal engineering feat nearly seventy years ago, says the ‘New.York Times.’ The story is told in detail in the ‘ Diary of the Great Eastern,’ a copy of which is in the_ collection of the Business Historical Society at Boston. The laying of the cable was accomplished after twelve years of intensive effort by Cyrus W. Field. The first attempt in 1857 was frustrated when the cable broke and fell into the sea about 300 miles off the Irish coast. The following year two expeditions were launched. The first was even less fortunate than its predecessor, for it had scarcely left sight of land when the cable broke. But Field was not daunted. When he left Valencia, Ireland, for the third effort the popularity of the project had waned, and few were on hand to wish Field bon voyage. The world was surprised, therefore when a few weeks later the cable ships anchored in Newfoundland with the cable laid. ■ But scarcely had the Queen of England and the President of the United States exchanged congratulations when the wire went dead, never to be revived. Public confidence in the project was now shattered, and it was not until 1865 that Field obtained enough money to carry on. But the fourth expedition was only two-thirds through its work when the cable snapped and joined its predecessors at the ocean bottom. Nevertheless, new things had been learned about cable strength and cablelaying machinery which made final success inevitable. On July 13, 1866, a cable was spliced to the shore end at Valencia, and a fifth laying of the Atlantic cable began. Then the sturdy ship Great Eastern, attended by the Terrible of the British Navy and the Albany and Medford, two privately chartered ships, ploughed across the Atlantic. Fourteen days later the American shore end was spliced at Heart’s Content, Newfoundland. on July 27, and the job was done. Throughout the voyage the crew was in constant, contact with European happenings. While Field was prepaying for the expedition Prussia, Austria, and Italy had gone to war. News of the war’s progress was reported daily to the men on the Great Eastern. On the day that the cable was completed word of the end of hostilities was received.