SINKING OF THE GREAT CABLE TELEGRAPH.

Otago Witness, Issue 41, 28 February 1852, Page 4

SINKING OF THE GREAT CABLE TELEGRAPH.

(From the Correspondent of tlie S. M. Herald.) Straits of Dover, Thursday, Sept. 25.

The' actual submersion of the great cable telegraph, now attracting so much international attention, and which arrived here by her Majesty's ship Blazer, was commenced this morning at six o'clock, at which hour Captain Bullock, R.N., was ready with the steam-ship Fearless, and a picked crew, to pilot the convoy across the Channel. The morning was calm and sea-bright, and the crews of both vessels appeared animated with that feeling of adventure which is naturally enough evoked by an experi-

ment of such an enterprise and novelty as that of underlaying some 20 miles of deep sea with the electric link of intelligence between the European continent and the capital of the world. The first thing done, there not being sufficient depth of water for the Blazer to be brought near enough shore, was to convey the extremity of the cable on to the South Foreland coast, where it will be buried deep in the beach, and carried up the cliff. The Fearless then steamed ahead, having made fast her towing tackle to the hull of the Blater, at the rate of two miles an hour, out to sea, the men on board the latter vessel paying out continuously the cable over her stern, from whence, by the action of its own weight, it sank into the submarine sand and valley. The track between the South Foreland and Sanngate, the corresponding point on the French coast, and which has been selected as presenting, from soundings and surveys, the fewest obstacles and probable disturbances, was marked out by pilot buoys, and is chosen as the best site for the submerging of the wire that could be adopted by those having the best knowledge of naval and marine dynamics. The depth of the sea line at starting point is from 20 to 30 feet, and its maximum depth 180 feet, or 30 fathoms. There being a surplus of four miles of wire over the 21 required, the slackening process was well sustained, and the experience gathered from the experiment of last year rendered the operation the more facile. The route adopted differs advantageously from the one laid down last year, which was in the neighbourhood of shifting sands. Messrs. Crampton and Wollaston, the engineers, were in charge of the engineering arrangements, and some thirty men and the necessary batteries being on board, complimentary messages and notifications of progress were sent over the progressively paid out cable through the waveless depths to Dover. Fusees were also, at intervals of miles, fired through it on the foreshore.

At half-past one the gratifying intelligence was conveyed through the cable that it was then halfway across the channel, 10 miles ; but at this stage of the voyage it began to blow fresh, and the ripple at the bows of the vessel at starting now assumed more of the rolling sea, which occasioned a pitching of the vessel that, for perfect facility of operation, had been better dispensed with. At about half-past five o'clock, the time at which the last train left Dover for London, about 16 miles of cable had been successfully steamed off and submerged, and as, consequently, nothing further in the shape of a written despatch could be conveyed to town, the only medium for communicating the subsequent progress of submersion would be

[by sub-sea and land telegraph.] " Coast of France, Twilight.

" The cable is securely anchored two-and-a-half miles off the French coast."

It will thus be seen that the great cable, after an arduous expedition, was all but successfully landed on the French frontier, and this is to be completely accomplished on the renewal of operations to-morrow morning.