Despite the considerable setback, the young engineer remained upbeat:
I do not perceive, in our present position, any reason for discouragement; but I have, on the contrary, a greater confidence than ever in the undertaking. It has been proved beyond a doubt that no obstacle exists to prevent our ultimate success. I see clearly how every difficulty which has presented itself in this voyage can be effectively dealt with in the next. The cable has been laid at the expected rate in the great depth; its electrical working through the entire length has been most satisfactorily accomplished, while the portion laid actually improved in efficiency by being submerged, from the low temperature of the water and the close compression of the texture of the gutta percha.
In Bright’s opinion, the structure of the cable was ‘expressly adapted to our requirements’. Its weight in the water was right for the depth, he thought, so that the stress on it was manageable; a lighter cable would take longer to lay, so in the laying would be exposed to greater strain.
The inquest began on 20 August. The naval officers generally concurred with Bright about the cause of the mishap, and gave their opinion that a further attempt to lay the cable that year, in October, would be too dangerous. They also insisted that a future expedition would best start mid-ocean. Bright asked that there be more men, as the ‘wearing and anxious nature of the work’ called for ‘three separate relays of staff, and to employ for attention to the brakes a high degree of mechanical skill’. A scientific committee, consisting of William E. Everett of the US Navy, chief engineer of the Niagara, along with Mr Lloyd, chief of the steam department of Her Majesty’s Navy, and two eminent marine engineers, William Penn of Greenwich and Joshua Field of Maudslay, Son & Field of Lambeth, was despatched to Plymouth to examine machinery and mechanical appliances. It seemed that, in the rush to adapt the Niagara, there had not been sufficient attention to the design of suitable paying-out machinery. The committee identified ways in which the machines might be improved, and asked Joseph Whitworth, the leading mechanical engineer of his day, to consider the suggestions. Whitworth looked, but declined to make any changes. William Thomson had also written to his fellow directors arguing for improvements to the purity of the copper in the cable’s core, and also complaining that the appliances used for hauling in the cable were inefficient.
Despite some criticism of the Atlantic company in the columns of The Times, confidence in the cable was not seriously dented. Field, who had been aboard the Agamemnon when the cable snapped, rushed back to Portsmouth on the Leopard and tried to organise another expedition immediately, but was overruled by his fellow directors. By early September, a new attempt was being planned for the following summer. Professor Thomson was to oversee a competition for the best telegraphic instrument. He also chaired a committee to enquire into the electrical problems which had manifested themselves, the report from which was passed to Whitehouse.
In October the Leipzig set out to recover the sunken cable. Whitehouse meanwhile was planning tests on unused cable from the Niagara, stored with that from the Agamemnon in a vacant powder magazine belonging to the Admiralty in Keyham, Plymouth. Both ships had been unloaded at Plymouth docks, which had the best facilities of any port for landing cable. Bright had already tested both cables on board ship after the failure, finding them to be ‘in as perfect condition as when leaving the works at Greenwich and Birkenhead’. Yet as William Thomson continued to do tests on them over the winter of 1857–58, he found numerous faults. The insulation was suspect.
When Cyrus Field returned to New York at the end of 1857, he discovered that his own fortune had collapsed in a commercial crisis which gripped the city. His company had been forced to suspend payments. Some of his staunchest allies, including Peter Cooper, were also badly hit. Field’s reputation from his previous financial troubles stood him in good stead, and he arranged matters so that the business could again carry on profitably in his absence. Even more had now come to rest on the 1858 cable. The Atlantic company had spent £301,000 by the end of 1857, and had only £46,000 left in its coffers. To finance the 1858 attempt, new shares were to be issued at £20 each. Finding subscribers, though, after the unexpected failure, was more difficult than before. Nonetheless, an order for 900 miles of new cable was placed with Glass & Elliot. Added to the lengths stored in Plymouth, that made more than 3,000 miles in total, so that the line could be laid generously without a danger of snapping or shortage of cable. Over the previous months, Professor William Thomson had become convinced that the purity of copper in the core was crucial to the success of the cable. The additional lengths made for the 1858 attempt were therefore tested for their quality and conductivity as they were being made, a system rigorously followed ever after. But this happened too late to improve the main line in store at Plymouth.
Gisborne made another attempt to involve himself with the cable. His offer to lay it the following summer, but only on condition that he was entrusted with ‘the entire charge of the vessel’, was declined. Field, bouncing back from his personal troubles, again visited Washington and was given the services of the Niagara and Chief Engineer Everett, who had impressed him in 1857. On his return to England in January 1858 with Everett, Field was appointed general manager of the company, in charge of the entire staff of engineers and electricians. He turned down the offer of a salary of £1,000.
Everett spent the next three months working at the Southwark factory of the engineers Easton & Amos on a re-design of the paying-out machinery. It was considered an immense improvement, smaller and lighter than the previous version, taking up much less space on deck, and a quarter the weight. The machine incorporated a self-regulating brake which could release quickly to prevent the cable from snapping. Everett invited a number of eminent engineers to inspect his machine, including Brunel, Penn and Field, each acting as an unpaid advisor to the Atlantic company. All were impressed by this machine, which ‘seemed to have the intelligence of a human being, to know when to hold on, and when to let go’. There had been other improvements to the machines on board: Easton & Amos’s engine for coiling on board the Agamemnon, Glass & Elliot’s hauling-in machine on loan at no charge, and Mr Robinson’s new graphite batteries. Most significantly, Thomson had developed new and delicate instruments to revolutionise long-distance signalling and electrical testing on board ship. His mirror galvanometer used a tiny magnet fixed to a mirror, both suspended by a silk thread, to enhance weak incoming signals by light and reflection. A ‘mirror clerk’ could read up to twenty-five words a minute, dictating the message to a second clerk. This became the main instrument used in the industry for the next fifteen years, until superseded by Thomson’s siphon recorder. The mirror galvanometer’s very sensitivity, though, made it unsuitable for use on board ship during laying, when galvanometers were used for electrical testing and as receivers to try the function of the cable as it was laid. One problem was the ship’s motion. The instrument also suffered from the magnetic problems which interfered with the working of ships’ compasses – the changing magnetic field of the earth, and the influence of the ship’s iron hull and cargo. Thomson developed a marine galvanometer which would work under these conditions, by suspending the mechanism to isolate it from the movement of the ship, using magnets to compensate for external influences, or encasing the instrument in an iron shield.
The ships, chief engineers and electricians would be almost the same as on the 1857 expedition, with the Gorgon replacing the Leopard. At the last minute it was discovered that the Susquehanna was stranded in the West Indies, quarantined with yellow fever on board. It was too late to acquire another American vessel, so the intrepid Field immediately took a cab across London to the first Lord of the Admiralty to appeal for help. The Admiralty was short of vessels at the time, but such was Field’s audacity and reputation that he managed to secure the Royal Navy’s Valorous.
The Niagara and the Agamemnon spent the whole of April and part of May 1858 at Plymouth receiving the cable. This time, it was coiled ar
ound large cones, and stowed with greater care than in the previous year. The engineers had their way, the naval officers’ advice was to be followed, and the line was laid from the middle of the ocean. One of the advantages in this plan was that the laying vessels could talk to each other, down the very cable as it was laid. Because such a difficult mid-ocean splice had not been tried before, there was to be a rehearsal. The ships set sail for the Bay of Biscay, where the sea was 2,500 fathoms, as deep as anything which would be encountered in the Atlantic. There they made sure that the crew knew their duties, and they practised splicing, laying, hauling in, and buoying, using old and damaged cable. There were breakages, to be expected with the flawed wire, but the results, and the performance of the new instruments and machinery, were pleasing. The ships were able to talk to each other throughout the exercise, with ‘perfect electrical continuity’.
The squadron left Plymouth for their mid-ocean rendezvous on 10 June, seven weeks earlier than the previous year’s expedition and with much less ceremony. The weather was glorious. Within hours, though, the situation took a dangerous turn for the worse. Maury’s careful climatic calculations had been upset, and upset with a vengeance, by a freak storm, a gale so severe that it was called a tempest. The Niagara bore the brunt of this violent weather without too much danger. But the ungainly Agamemnon, ‘labouring fearfully’, top heavy with 250 tons of cable on her forward deck, took it much worse and almost turned turtle. The storm lasted a week before reaching its climax, and for two further days the Agamemnon was in ever greater peril, in ‘as fierce a storm as ever swept over the Atlantic’.
The position of her main cargo in the centre of the ship had shifted as the vessel lurched from side to side, almost on her beam ends, in the towering waves. The ship’s planks gaped an inch apart under her huge load, and it was feared that she would break up. The cable, if it slipped, might take out the Agamemnon’s side. Her coal bunkers burst, releasing 100 tons of fuel and increasing the danger, the ship at this point lurching 45 degrees with each wave. The cable in the main hold worked loose, ‘resembling nothing so much as a cargo of live eels’. If the masts had given way, the ship would have been tossed further to the side and would certainly have been lost, her cable and crew with her. Captain Preedy was left with no choice but to run before the storm, a course which carried the risk that the Agamemnon would be swamped, ‘pooped by the monster seas in pursuit’. He thought of throwing the cable overboard to save his vessel, but gambled on retaining it. The ship was within hours of destruction when at last the storm blew itself out, and on 21 June she was able to make her way towards the Niagara. The cable expedition mustered at the rendezvous point on a still evening four days later.
The Niagara had suffered minor damage, and lost the buoys used to suspend the cable. The Agamemnon was in much worse shape, hardly seaworthy and with a number of men seriously injured and traumatised. The ‘live eels’ needed re-coiling, a considerable task which took several days. Once that was dealt with, the expedition could proceed, despite the British ship’s condition. The Niagara’s cable was taken on board the Agamemnon, a splice made, and the ships steamed away towards their home countries. Six miles apart, they were obliged to turn round and start again. The Niagara’s cable had been paid out too slack, fouled on its pulley, and broke.
Thomson had taken the place of Whitehouse at the last minute as chief electrician on the voyage. The professor was later thanked by the company for having ‘generously given up the whole of his arrangements for the summer’, though in truth he was delighted with a chance to carry out electrical experiments impossible in a laboratory. Whitehouse had excused himself because of illness, ‘supported by medical certificate’ as he was later at pains to emphasise. This was not the full story, for the highly strung Brighton surgeon probably sensed by this point that his star was on the wane. His scientific views were increasingly at odds with those of Thomson, and he had lost his ally on the main board with the removal of Morse as a company director.
On board the Agamemnon, Thomson continuously tested the cable as it was laid from the second splice. With eighty miles paid out, he had to announce that there had been complete electrical failure. Before thorough tests were completed, it proved impossible to hold the line from a stationary vessel in a heavy swell, and the cable snapped and was lost. It seemed that the fault had been on the seabed, a conclusion which disheartened everyone involved, for it suggested circumstances beyond control, and which could prove fatal to any attempt.
But there was only one thing to be done. A third start was made on the next day, 28 June. By this time all were exhausted and frustrated, not least because the prolonged voyage meant that the Agamemnon had run out of fresh food, and the crew was reduced to eating beef ‘salted to an astonishing pitch, and otherwise uneatable, kept three years beyond its warranty for soundness’. The cable was again launched, and the ships parted, soon lost to each other’s view in a cold fog. This was almost the last chance, for the Agamemnon’s coal was running out as fast as her other supplies. The ships moved slowly, at two knots at first, gradually picking up speed with each hour. Charles Bright and his assistants Samuel Canning and Henry Clifford stood constant watch on the paying-out machinery.
Two days passed, the weather stayed calm, and some of the exhausted men snatched a few hours’ rest, lulled by the steady turning of the machine. Mechanically, it was going well. Electrically, the signals passed unhindered. When the line on the upper deck was almost gone, 112 miles from the start, the machinery was slowed so that cable could start to be drawn from the main hold. This procedure had been practised in the Bay of Biscay and should have been quite straightforward. Out of the blue, though, inexplicably, the cable which had just left the ship snapped, while subjected to a force of less than a ton. An explanation came later: the lowest coil of cable had been damaged when the Agamemnon’s upper deck floor was smashed in the storm, and the problem passed unnoticed in the chaos around.
There was enough cable left to try again, although coal was very low. The Agamemnon sailed, wind-powered to save coal for the laying, for another mid-ocean rendezvous with her American counterpart. The Niagara, with no means of hauling in her cable, had been forced to cut and abandon it. On 1 July, the weather worsened, but this was a nuisance rather than a danger as the loss of her upper-deck cable had made the Agamemnon ‘as buoyant as a lifeboat’, removing the dangerous tendency to roll over. As fog descended, she sought the Niagara for several days, but failed to find her. Communication between the ships had stopped with the breaking of the line. The Americans, it turned out, had gone to Queenstown, following a pre-arranged order to return to Ireland if the ships had travelled more than 100 miles when communication broke off. The Niagara arrived in port on 5 July, where there was great alarm as days passed and the British ship did not appear. But a week later, after thirty-three days at sea and having survived great peril, the Agamemnon cast anchor in Queenstown harbour.
Field, who had been on board the Niagara, was already in London, confronting a gloomy board of directors. The American, who had been running on nervous energy and little or no sleep, was close to collapse. ‘The strain on the man was more than the strain on the cable, and we were in fear that both would break together,’ wrote his brother Henry. The directors were in despair, staring blankly at each other. The chairman, Sir William Brown, proposed that the scheme should be abandoned, the cable sold and the proceeds divided among the shareholders. But there was still conviction that the cable could be laid that year and Brown, out-voted, resigned. The expedition was told to prepare to sail again immediately with its remaining 2,200 nautical miles of cable.
Freshly coaled and provisioned, the small fleet turned again towards the Atlantic Ocean on 17 July. There was no cheering or encouragement from the shore. Instead, many were convinced that the idea was hopeless and that the ‘stubborn ignorance’ of pursuing it was the folly of a company ‘possessed by a kind of insanity’. As the ships passed across the ocean, it fell calm, �
��smooth as a mill pond’. They rendezvoused on the morning of 29 July. Unceremoniously, for the weary party had no enthusiasm to mark the moment, the cables were joined again. As paying out started, a great whale approached at speed and grazed the Agamemnon’s cable where it entered the water. This hazard, unforeseen, caused no harm.
The cable went steadily out. On the British ship, a damaged piece of line was discovered in time to repair just before it disappeared into the ocean. There were interruptions in the electrical current, which righted themselves as mysteriously as they had appeared. Later an inadequate sand battery was blamed for this inconsistency. As laying proceeded, the signal was encouragingly robust. On the Niagara, there was alarm as the ship deviated miles off her course, the compass thrown out of true by the mass of iron on board. Gaining distance at that rate, she would not have cable to reach Newfoundland. The problem was solved by sending Gorgon ahead to lead the way. The Agamemnon, meanwhile, struggled eastwards in high seas and against the wind, narrowly avoiding collision with an American schooner, Chieftain, which had ignored warnings to move out of her way.
As the American cable-layers passed their first icebergs, they received a signal that Agamemnon had paid out 780 miles of cable. Both ships had then, on 3 August, reached shallow water of 200 fathoms. The following day, Niagara entered Trinity Bay, and the pilot steered her to the Telegraph House. Cyrus Field telegraphed the news of her arrival to the Associated Press in New York early on 5 August, just before the cable was landed. At the same time, Agamemnon was entering Valentia harbour, heralded by the guns of the Valorous, which roused the sleeping inhabitants. The boy John Lecky was among those who rushed out to witness the Agamemnon’s return to Valentia, one year to the day after she had last been there, a year of ‘profound calm’ on the island. He knew, though, that recent weeks had been anything but calm for the naval vessel, and that she had been almost lost with her cable. Now, however, she was ‘lying like a cork’ in Lough Kay, ‘having laid her part of the cable from mid-Atlantic and having burnt all the coal as well as some of her decks, she was wonderfully light and it is a wonder how she got in without disaster.’ Bright and Canning took the cable ashore at Knightstown, where Whitehouse attached a galvanometer and sent the first message between the continents.
The Cable Page 8