From a drawing by R. Dudley London, Day & Sons, Limited, Lith. SEARCHING FOR FAULT AFTER RECOVERY OF THE CABLE FROM THE BED OF THE ATLANTIC. JULY 31st.[larger view]From a drawing by R. DudleyLondon, Day & Sons, Limited, Lith.SEARCHING FOR FAULT AFTER RECOVERY OF THE CABLE FROM THE BED OF THEATLANTIC. JULY 31st.
From a drawing by R. Dudley London, Day & Sons, Limited, Lith. IN THE BOWS AUGUST 2nd. THE CABLE BROKEN AND LOST PREPARING TO GRAPPLE.[larger view]From a drawing by R. DudleyLondon, Day & Sons, Limited, Lith.IN THE BOWS AUGUST 2nd. THE CABLE BROKEN AND LOST PREPARING TO GRAPPLE.
Tuesday, August 1st.—The Great Eastern continued on her way without let or hindrance all night and early morning, increasing her speed to 7 knots an hour, although there was a strong breeze at times. The sea continued to favour us greatly, and the ship’s deck scarcely ever varied from a horizontal plane. At noon our position was, Lat. 51° 52´ 30´´, Long. 36° 3´ 30´´: making 155 miles run since yesterday. Cable paid out 1081·55 miles. Distance from Valentia, 948 miles: distance from Heart’s Content, 717 miles. We were without soundings; but it was supposed we were passing over the line on the chart where they varied from 1975 to 2250 fathoms. The Terrible was at her usual station, about two miles away; but we gave up all hopes of seeing the Sphinx till we reached Heart’s Content. It was calculated that at our present rate we would seeland on Friday evening, or first thing on Saturday morning. In preparation for our arrival the crew were employed in transferring the shore end of the Cable from the main to the after tank. It would be painful to dwell on the tenour of our conversation. The wisest men forgot the lessons of the past few days. It seemed quite certain that the right step had been taken, and that the man, or men, who had caused the previous mishaps had been effectually checkmated. The praises of the Great Eastern were on every tongue. Had no fault occurred, our task would have been nearly ended by this time. Her mission is undoubtedly the laying of Atlantic Cables, and she did it nobly as far as in her lay on this occasion.
Wednesday, August 2nd.—In the course of the night the wind, accompanied by a dense fog, rose from the westward. Then it suddenly shifted to N.N.W.; but although the sea was high, there was no rolling or pitching, and none of the sleepers were aroused from slumber, which was favoured by the ceaseless rumble of the machinery. They were, however, awakened but too speedily. Again the great enterprise on which so much depended, and on which so many hearts and eyes were fixed, was rudely checked.
As I have said, the gale did not in the least affect the ship. She went on through the heavy sea steady as an island, running out the Cable at the rate of 7 knots an hour; and when the wind shifted to N.N.W. our course was altered to N.W. by W. ½ W., through a sea which fell as rapidly as it had risen. The crisis was now at hand. I was aroused about 8 o’clock a.m., Greenwich time (ship’s time being more than two hours earlier), by the slowing of the engines, and on looking out of my port saw, from the foam of the paddles passing ahead, that the ship was moving astern. In a moment afterwards I stood in the Testing-Room, where Mr. de Sauty, the centre of a small group of electricians, among whom was Professor Thomson, was bending over the instruments, surrounded by his anxious staff. The chronometer marked 8·6 a.m., Greenwich time. In reply to my question as to what was wrong, Professor Thomson whispered, “Another bad fault.” This was indeed surprising and distressing.
In order to make the history of the day consecutive, I will relate as closely as possible what occurred. Mr. Field went on duty in the tank in the early morning, relieving M. Jules Despescher. Some twenty minutes before the fault was noticed, whilst Mr. Field was watching, a grating noise was heard in the tank as the coil flew out over the flakes. One of the men exclaimed, “There goes a piece of wire.” The word was passed up through the crinoline shaft to the watcher. But he either did not hear what was said, or neglected to give any intimation, as the warning never reached Mr. Temple, who was on duty at the stern at the time. At 8 a.m., Greenwich time, being the beginning of an hour, and therefore thetime when in regular series the electricians on board the Great Eastern began to send currents to the shore, the gentleman engaged in watching the galvanometer, saw the unerring index light quiver for an instant and glide off the scale. The fact was established that instead of meeting with the proper resistance, and traversing the whole length of the Cable to the shore, a large portion of the stream was escaping through a breach in the gutta percha into the sea. If the quantity of the current escaping had been uniform, the electricians could calculate very nearly the distance of the spot where the injury had taken place. In the present instance, however, the tests varied greatly, and showed a varying fault. When the current is sent through a wire from one pole it produces an electro-chemical action on the wire, and at the place of the injury, which leads to a deposit of a salt of copper in the breach, and impedes the escape of electricity; and when the opposite current is returned, the deposit is reduced, and hydrogen gas formed, a globule of which may rest in the chink, and, by its non-conducting power, restore the insulation of the Cable for a time. The fault in the present instance was so grave that it was resolved to pick up the Cable once more, till we cut it out, and re-spliced it. How far away it was no one could tell precisely; but from a comparison of time it was imagined that the faulty part was not far astern, and that it was in the portion of Cable which went over at 8 o’clock in the morning, or a little before it; and although the time was not accurately fixed when Mr. Field heard it, the grating noise was supposed to arise from some cause connected with the fault. Had the engineers foreseen what subsequently occurred they might have resolved to go on, and take the chance of working through the fault. Professor Thomson has since given it as his opinion that the fault could have been worked through, and that the Cable could have transmitted messages for a long time at the rate of four words a minute—making an amply remunerative return. Mr. de Sauty also entertained the belief that the Cable could have worked for several months, at all events. But it does not appear that Mr. Canning had any reason to act on the views of these gentlemen, and it was quite sure, when the end was landed in Heart’s Content, Mr. Varley could not have given his certificate that the Cable was of the contract standard. Neither Mr. Varley nor Mr. Professor Thomson had any power to interfere, or even to express their opinions, and electricians and engineers are generally inclined to regard with exclusive attention their own department in the united task, and to look to it solely.
Nothing was left but to pick up the cable. Steam was got up in the boilers for the picking-up machinery, the shackles and wire rope were prepared, and, meantime, as the ship drifted the Cable was let run out, and the brakeswere regulated to reduce the strain below 30 cwt. As they were cutting the Cable near the top of the tank in the forenoon to make a test, one of the foremen perceived in the flake underneath that which had passed out with the grating noise when the fault was declared, a piece of wire projecting from the Cable, and when he took it in his fingers to prevent it catching in the passing coil, the wire broke short off. I saw it a few minutes afterwards. It was a piece of the wire of the Cable itself, not quite three inches long; one end rather sharp, the other with a clean bright fracture, and bent very much in the same way as the piece of wire which caused the first fault. This was a very serious discovery. It gave a new turn to men’s thoughts at once. After all, the Cable might carry the source of deadly mischief within itself. What we had taken for assassination might have been suicide. The piece of wire in this case was evidently bad and brittle, and had started through the Manilla in the tank. How many similar pieces might have broken without being detected or causing loss of insulation? The marks of design in the second fault were very striking; but the freaks of machinery in motion are extraordinary, and what looked so like purposed malice might, after all, be the effect of accidental mechanical agency. There were thenceforth for the day two parties in the ship—those who believed in malice, and those who attributed all our disasters to accident. In the end the latter school included nearly all on board the ship, and it was generally thought that in the Cable, or, rather, in what had been intended as its protection, was the source of its weakness and ruin.
Before the end of the Cable was finally shackled to the wire rope, tests were applied to the portion in tanks. The first cut was made at the old splice, between the main and fore tanks, and the Cable was found perfect. The second cut, at three miles from the end of the Cable, showed the fault to be overboard. Whilst the tests were going on, and the cablemen got the picking-up gear in readiness, the dynamometer showed a strain on the Cable astern varying from 20 to 28 cwt.
The chain and rope were at last secured to the Cable, under the eyes of Mr. Canning. It was then 9·53 a.m. The indicator stood at 376·595, showing that 1,186 miles of Cable had been payed-out. At 9·58 a.m. (Greenwich time), the Cable was cut and slipped overboard astern, fastened to its iron guardians. The depth of water was estimated at 2000 fathoms. As it went over and down in its fatal dive, one of the men said, “Away goes our talk with Valentia.” Mr. de Sauty did not inform the operator at Valentia of the nature of the abrupt stoppage. We had now become so hardened to the dangers of the slip overboard, and the sight of the Cable straining for its life in contest with the Big Ship, that the cutting and slipping excited no apprehension; but nothing could reconcile men to the picking-up machinery, and its monotonousretrogression. The wind was on our starboard beam, and the Cable was slipped over at the port quarter, and carried round on the port side towards the ship’s bows, in order that the vessel might go over it, and then come up more readily to the Cable, head to wind, when the picking-up began. The drift of the ship was considerable, and it was not easy—indeed, possible—to control her movements; but, notwithstanding all this, the wire buoy-rope was got up to the machinery in reasonable time. Still the ship’s head—do what Capt. Anderson would, and he did as much as any man could—did not come round easily. Even a punt will not turn if she has no way on her, and it takes a good deal of way—more than she could get with safety to the Cable—to give steerage to the Great Eastern. As she slowly drifted and came round by degrees quite imperceptible to those who did not keep a close watch on the compass, the wire rope was payed-out; and at last, as the ship’s bows turned, it was taken in over the machinery, and was passed aft through the drums, and the picking-up apparatus coiled it in very slowly away till the end of the Cable was hauled up out of the sea.
It was 10·30 a.m., Greenwich time, when the Cable came in over the bow. We were now in very deep water, but had we been a few miles more to the west we should have been over the very deepest part of the Atlantic Plateau. It was believed the fault was only six miles away, and ere dead nightfall we might hope to have the fault on board, make a new splice, and proceed on our way to Heart’s Content, geographically about 600 miles away. The picking-up was, as usual, exceedingly tedious, and one hour and forty-six minutes elapsed before one mile of Cable was got on board; then one of the engines’ eccentric gear got out of order, and a man had to stand by with a handspike, aided by a wedge of wood and an elastic band, to aid the machinery. Next the supply of steam failed; and as soon then as the steam was got up, there was not water enough in the boiler, and so the picking-up ceased altogether. But at last all these impediments were remedied or overcome, and the operation was proceeded with before noon. Let the reader turn his face towards a window and imagine that he is standing on the bows of the Great Eastern, and then on his right will be the starboard, on his left the port side of the ship. The motion of the vessel was from right to left, and as she drifted, she tugged at the Cable from the right hand side, where he seemed to be anchored in the sea. There was not much rolling or pitching, but the set of the waves ran on her port-bow. There are in the bows of the Great Eastern two large hawse-pipes, the iron rims of which project beyond the line of the stem; against one of these the Cable caught on the left-hand side whilst the ship was drifting to the left, and soon began to chafeand strain against the bow. The Great Eastern could not go astern, lest the Cable should be snapped, and without motion there was no power of steerage. At this critical moment, too, the wind shifted, so as to render it more difficult to keep the head of the ship up to the Cable. As the Cable chafed so much that there was danger of its parting, a shackle, chain, and rope belonging to one of the Cable-buoys were passed over the bows, and secured in a bight below the hawse-pipe to the Cable. These were then hauled so as to bring the Cable to the right-hand side of the bow, the ship still drifting to the left, and the oblique strain on the wires became considerable, but it was impossible to diminish it by veering out, as the length of Cable after it was cut at the stern for the operation of picking-up left little to spare. In the bow there is a large iron wheel with a deep groove in the circumference (technically called a V wheel), by the side of which is a similar but smaller wheel on the same axis. The Cable and the rope together were brought in over the bows in the groove in the larger wheel, the Cable being wound upon a drum behind by the picking-up machinery, which was once more in motion, and the rope being taken in round the capstan. But the rope and Cable did not come up in a right line in the V in the wheel, but were drawn up obliquely. Still, up they came. The strain shown on the dynamometer was high, but was not near the breaking point. The part of the Cable which had suffered from chafing was coming in, and the first portion of it was inboard; suddenly a jar was given to the dynamometer by a jerk, caused either by a heave of the vessel or by the shackle of wire-rope secured to the Cable, and the index jumped far above 60 cwt., the highest point marked on it. The chain shackle and wire-rope clambered up out of the groove of the V wheel, got on the rim, and rushed down with a crash on the smaller wheel, giving a severe shock to the Cable. Almost at the same moment, as the Cable and the rope travelled slowly along through the machinery, just ere they reached the dynamometer the Cable parted, flew through the stoppers, and with one bound leaped over intervening space and flashed into the sea. The shock of the instant was as sharp as the snapping of the Cable itself. No words could describe the bitterness of the disappointment. The Cable gone! gone for ever down in that fearful depth! It was enough to move one to tears; and when a man came with the piece of the end lashed still to the chain, and showed the tortured strands—the torn wires—the lacerated core—it is no exaggeration to say that a feeling of pity, as if it were some sentient creature which had been thus mutilated and dragged asunder by brutal force, moved the spectators. Captain Moriarty was just coming to the foot of the companion to put up his daily statement of the ship’s position, having had excellent observations, when the news came. “I fear,” he said, “wewill not feel much interested now in knowing how far we are from Heart’s Content.” However, it was something to know, though it was little comfort, that we had at noon run precisely 116·4 miles since yesterday; that we were 1,062·4 miles from Valentia, 606·6 miles from Heart’s Content; that we were in Lat. 51° 25´, Long. 39° 6´, our course being 76° S. and 25° W. But instant strenuous action was demanded! Alas! action! There around us lay the placid Atlantic smiling in the sun, and not a dimple to show where lay so many hopes buried. The Terrible was signalled to, “the Cable has parted,” and soon bore down to us, and came-to off our port beam. After brief consideration, Mr. Canning resolved to make an attempt to recover the Cable. Never, we thought, had alchemist less chance of finding a gold button in the dross from which he was seeking aurum potabile, or philosopher’s stone. But, then, what would they say in England, if not even an attempt, however desperate, were made? There were men on board who had picked up Cables from the Mediterranean 700 fathoms down. The weather was beautiful, but we had no soundings, and the depth was matter of conjecture; still it was settled that the Great Eastern should steam to windward and eastward of the position in which she was when the Cable went down, lower a grapnel, and drift down across the course of the track in which the Cable was supposed to be lying. Although all utterance of hope was suppressed, and no word of confidence escaped the lips, the mocking shadows of both were treasured in some quiet nook of the fancy. The doctrine of chances could not touch such a contingency as we had to speculate upon. The ship stood away some 13 or 14 miles from the spot where the accident occurred, and there lay-to in smooth water, with the Terrible in company. The grapnel, two five-armed anchors, with flukes sharply curved and tapering to an oblique tooth-like end—the hooks with which the giant Despair was going to fish from the Great Eastern for a take worth, with all its belongings, more than a million, were brought up to the bows. One of these, weighing 3 cwt., shackled and secured to wire buoy rope, of which there were five miles on board, with a breaking strain calculated at 10 tons, was thrown over at 3·20, ship’s time, and “whistled thro’” the sea, a prey to fortune. At first the iron sank slowly, but soon the momentum of descent increased, so as to lay great stress on the picking-up machinery, which was rendered available to lowering the novel messenger with warrant of search for the fugitive hidden in mysterious caverns beneath. Length flew after length over cog-wheel and drum till the iron, warming with work, heated so as to convert the water thrown upon the machinery into clouds of steam. The time passed heavily. The electricians’ room was closed; all their subtle apparatus stood functionless, and cell, zinc, and copper threw off superfluous currents in the darkened chamber. The jockeyshad run their race, and reposed in their iron saddles. The drums beat no more, their long réveillée ended in the muffled roll of death; that which had been broken could give no trouble to break, and man shunned the region where all these mute witnesses were testifying to the vanity of human wishes. All life died out in the vessel, and no noise was heard except the dull grating of the wire-rope over the wheels at the bows. The most apathetic would have thought the rumble of the Cable the most grateful music in the world.
Away slipped the wire strands, shackle after shackle: ocean was indeed insatiable; “more” and “more,” cried the daughter of horse-leech from the black night of waters, and still the rope descended. One thousand fathoms—fifteen hundred fathoms—two thousand fathoms—hundreds again mounting up—till at last, at 5·6 p.m., the strain was diminished, and at 2,500 fathoms, or 15,000 feet, the grapnel reached the bed of the Atlantic, and set to its task of finding and holding the Cable. Wherethatlay was of course beyond human knowledge; but as the ship drifted down across its course, there was just a sort of head-shaking surmise that the grapnel might catch it, that the ship might feel it, that the iron-rope might be brought up again—and that the Cable across it might—here was the most hazardous hitch of all—might come up without breaking. But 2,500 fathoms! Alas!—and so in the darkness of the night—not more gloomy than her errand—the Great Eastern, having cleared away one of the great buoys and got it over her bows, was left as a sport to the wind, and drifted, at the rate of 70 feet a minute, down upon the imaginary line where the Cable had sunk to useless rest. \
August 3rd.—All through the night’s darkness the Great Eastern groped along the bottom with the grapnel as the wind drifted her, but cunning hands had placed the ship so that her course lay right athwart the line for which she was fishing. There were many on board who believed the grapnel would not catch anything but a rock, and that if it caught a rock or anything else it would break itself or the line without anyone on board being the wiser for it. Others contended the Cable would be torn asunder by the grapnel. Others calculated the force required to draw up two miles and a-half of the Cable to the surface, and to drag along the bottom the length of line needed to give a bight to the Cable caught in the grapnel, so as to permit it to mount two and a-half miles to the deck of the Great Eastern. After the grapnel touched the bottom, which was at 7·45 o’clock, p.m., last night, when 2,500 fathoms of rope were payed-out, the strain for an hour and a-half did not exceed 55 cwt.; but at 10 p.m. it rose to 80 cwt. for a short time, and the head of the ship yielded a little from its course and came up to the wind. It then fell off as the strain was reduced to 55 cwt.which apparently was the normal force put on the ship by the weight of the rope and grapnel. This morning the same strain was shown by the dynamometer, and it varied very slightly from midnight till 6 o’clock a.m. Then the bow of the ship and the index of the dynamometer coincided in their testimony, and whilst the Great Eastern swayed gradually and turned her head towards the wind, the index of the machine recorded an increasing pressure. It began to be seen that there was some agency working to alter the course of the ship, and the dynamometer showed a strain of 70 cwt. The news soon spread; men rushed from compass to dynamometer. “We have caught it! we have caught it!” was heard from every lip.
There was in this little world of ours as much ever-varying excitement, as much elation and depression, as if it were a focus into which converged the joys and sorrows of humanity. When the Great Eastern first became sensible of the stress brought upon her by the grappling iron and rope she shook her head, and kept on her course, disappointing the hopes of those who were watching the dynamometer, and who saw with delight the rising strain. This happened several times. It was for a long time doubtful whether the grapnel held to anything more tenacious than the ooze, which for a moment arrested its progress and then gave way with a jerk as the ship drifted; but in the early morning, the long steady pull made it evident the curved prongs had laid their grip on a solid body, which yielded slowly to the pressure of the vessel as she went to leeward, but at the same time resisted so forcibly as to slew round her bow. The scientific men calculated the force exercised by grapnel and rope alone to be far less than that now shown on the dynamometer. And if the Great Eastern had indeed got hold of a substance in the bottom of the Atlantic at once so tenacious and so yielding, what could it be but the lost Cable?
E. Walker, lith from a drawing by R. Dudley London, Day & Sons, Limited, Lith. GETTING OUT ONE OF THE LARGE BUOYS FOR LAUNCHING AUGUST 2nd.[larger view]E. Walker, lith from a drawing by R. DudleyLondon, Day & Sons, Limited, Lith.GETTING OUT ONE OF THE LARGE BUOYS FOR LAUNCHING AUGUST 2nd.
from a drawing by R. Dudley London, Day & Sons, Limited, Lith. GENERAL VIEW OF PORT MAGEE &c. FROM THE HEIGHTS BELOW CORA BEG. THE CAROLINE LAYING THE SHORE END OF THE CABLE JULY 22nd.[larger view]from a drawing by R. DudleyLondon, Day & Sons, Limited, Lith.GENERAL VIEW OF PORT MAGEE &c. FROM THE HEIGHTS BELOW CORA BEG. THECAROLINE LAYING THE SHORE END OF THE CABLE JULY 22nd.
At 6·40 a.m., Greenwich time, the bow of the ship was brought up to the grapnel line. The machinery was set to work to pull up the 2,500 fathoms of rope. The index of the dynamometer, immediately on the first revolutions of the wheels and drums, rose to 85 cwt. The operation was of course exceedingly tedious, and its difficulty was increased by the nature of the rope, which was not made in a continuous piece, but in lengths of 100 fathoms each, secured by shackles and swivels of large size, and presumably of proportionate strength. It was watched with intense interest. The bows were crowded, in spite of the danger to which the spectators were exposed by the snapping of the wire-rope, which might have caused them serious and fatal injuries. At 7·15 o’clock, a.m., the first 100 fathoms of rope were in, and the great iron shackle and swivel at the end of the length were regarded with some feelings of triumph. At 7·55 a.m. the secondlength of 100 fathoms was on board, the strain varying from 65 to 75 cwt. At 8·10 a.m., when 400 fathoms had been purchased in and coiled away, the driving spur-wheel of the machinery broke, and the rope snapped, the strain being 90 cwt. at the time. The whole of the two miles of wire rope, grapnel and all, would have been lost, but that the stoppers caught the shackle at the end, and saved the experiment from a fatal termination. The operation was suspended for a short time, in order to permit the damage to be made good, and the rope was transferred to the capstan. The hazardous nature of the work, owing to the straining and jerking of the wire rope, was painfully evinced by the occurrence of accidents to two of the best men on Mr. Canning’s staff—one of whom was cut on the face, and the other had his jaw laid open. At noon nearly half a mile of rope was gathered in. With every length of Cable drawn up from the sea, the spirits of all on board became lighter, and whilst we all talked of the uncertainty of such an accomplishment, there was a sentiment stronger than any one would care to avow, inspiring the secret confidence that, having caught the Cable in this extraordinary manner, we should get it up at last, and end our strange eventful history by a triumphant entry to Heart’s Content. Already there were divers theories started as to the best way of getting the Cable on board, for if Mr. Canning ever saw the bight, the obvious question arose, “What will he do with it?” The whole of our speculations were abruptly terminated at 2·50 o’clock, p.m. As the shackle and swivel of the eleventh length of rope, which would have made a mile on board, were passing the machinery, the head of the swivel pin was wrung off by the strain, and the 1,400 fathoms of line, with grapnel attached, rushed down again to the bottom of the Atlantic, carrying with it the bight of Cable. The shock was bitter and sharp. The nature of the mishap was quite unforeseen. The engineers had calculated that the wire rope might part, or that the Cable itself might break at the bight, but no one had thought of the stout iron shackles and swivels yielding. To add to the gloominess of the situation, the fog, which had so long been hanging round the ship, settled down densely, and obliged the Great Eastern to proceed with extreme caution. But although the event damped, it did not extinguish, the hopes of the engineers. Mr. Canning and Mr. Clifford at once set their staff to bend 2,500 fathoms of spare wire rope to another grapnel, and to prepare a buoy to mark the spot as nearly as could be guessed where the rope had parted, and gone down with the bight of the Cable. The Great Eastern was to steam away to windward of the course of the Cable, and then drift down upon it about three miles west of the place where the accident occurred. Fog whistles were blown to warn the Terrible of our change of position, and at 1·30,ship’s time, the Great Eastern, as she steamed slowly away, fired a gun, to which a real or fancied response was heard soon afterwards. As she went ahead, guns were fired every 20 minutes, and the steam-whistles were kept going, but no reply was made, and she proceeded on her course alone. It was impossible to obtain a noon-day observation, and the only course to be pursued was to steam to windward for 14 or 15 miles, then to lay-to and drift, in the hope of procuring a favourable position for letting go the second grapnel, and catching the Cable once more.
August 4th.—The morning found the Great Eastern drifting in a dense fog. In order to gauge the nature of the task before them, the engineers fitted up a sounding tackle of all the spare line they could get, and hove it overboard with a heavy lead attached. The sinker, it is believed, touched bottom at 2,300 fathoms, but it never came up to tell the tale. The line broke when the men were pulling it in, and 2000 fathoms of cord were added to the maze of Cable and wire rope with which the bed of the Atlantic must be vexed hereabouts. The fog cleared away in the morning, and the Terrible was visible astern. Presently one of her boats put off, with a two-mile pull before her, for the Great Eastern. Lieutenant Prowse was sent to know what we had been doing, and what we intended to do. He returned to his ship with the information that Mr. Canning, full of determination, if not of hope, would renew his attempt to grapple the Cable, and haul it up once more. At noon, Captain Anderson and Staff-Commander Moriarty, who had been very much perplexed at the obstinate refusal of the sun to shine, and might be seen any time between 8 a.m. and noon parading the bridge sextant in hand, taking sights at space, succeeded in obtaining an observation, which gave our position Lat. 51° 34´ 30´´, Long. 37° 54´. The Great Eastern had drifted 34 miles from the place where the Cable parted, and as she had steamed 12 miles, her position was 46 miles to the east of the end of the Cable.
Meantime the engineers’ staff were busy making a solid strong raft of timber balks, 8 feet square, to serve as a base to a buoy to be anchored in 2,500 fathoms, as near as possible to the course of the Cable, and some miles to the westward of the place where the grapnel-rope parted. A portion of Cable, which had been a good deal strained, was used as tackle, for the purpose of securing the raft and buoy to a mushroom anchor. The buoy, which we shall call No. 1, was painted red, and was surmounted by a black ball, above which rose a staff, bearing a red flag. It was securely lashed on the raft. At 10 p.m., Greenwich time, the buoy No. 1 was hove overboard, and sailed away over the grey leaden water till it was brought up by the anchor in Lat. 51° 28´, Long. 38° 42´ 30´´. The Great Eastern,having thus marked a spot on the ocean, proceeded on her cruise, to take up a position which might enable her to cross the Cable with the new grapnel, and try fortune once more. Some researches made among the coils of telegraph Cable confirmed the opinion, that the iron wires in the outer protective coating were the sources of all our calamities, and fortified the position of those who maintained that the faults were the result of accident. In some instances the wires were started; in others they were broken in the strands. By twisting the wire, great variations in quality became apparent. Some portions were very tough, others snapped like steel. It is to be regretted that the scientific council who recommended the Cable did not test some parts of it in the paying-out apparatus with a severe strain, as they might have detected the inherent faults in the fabric. It is quite possible hundreds of broken ends exist in the Cable already laid, though they have done no harm to the insulation.
Saturday, August 5th.—There was no change in the weather. A grey mist enveloped the Great Eastern from stem to stern, blanket-like as sleep itself. The haze—for so it was rather than a fog—got lighter soon after 12 o’clock, but it was quite out of the question to attempt an observation of a longitudinal character. The steam-whistles pierced the fog-banks miles away. Shoals of grampuses, black fish, porpoises, came out of the obscure to investigate the source of such dread clamour, and blew, spouted, and rolled on the tops of the smooth unctuous-looking folds of water that undulated in broad sweeping billows on our beam. Our great object was to get sight of the buoy, and by that means make a guess at our position. At 12·30 p.m. the Terrible was sighted on the port beam, and our fog music was hushed. At 2·30 o’clock, p.m., the Terrible signalled that the buoy was three miles distant from her. This was quite an agreeable incident. Every eye was strained in search of the missing buoy, and at last the small red flag at the top of the staff was made out on the horizon. At 3·45 o’clock, p.m., the Great Eastern was abreast of the buoy, which was hailed with much satisfaction. It bore itself bravely, though rather more depressed than we had anticipated, and it was like meeting an old friend, to see it bobbing at us up and down in the ocean. It was resolved to steer N.W. by N. for 5 or 6 miles, so as to pass some miles beyond the Cable, and then, if the wind answered, to drift down and grapple. The Great Eastern signalled to the Terrible, “Please watch the buoy;” and, under her trusty watch and ward, we left the sole mark of the expedition fixed on the surface of the sea, and stood towards the northward. The wind, however, did not answer, and the grapnel was not thrown overboard.
Aug. 6th, Sunday.—It was very thick all through the night—fog, rain, drizzle alternately, and all together. When morning broke, the Terrible wasvisible for a moment in a lift of the veil of grey vapour which hung down from the sky on the face of the waters. The buoy was of course quite lost to view, nor did we see it all day. At 10·45 a.m. Captain Anderson read prayers in the saloon. At noon it was quite hopeless to form a conjecture respecting the position of the sun or of the horizon, but Captain Moriarty and Captain Anderson were ready to pounce upon either, and as the least gleam of light came forth, sextants in hand, like the figures which indicate fine weather in the German hygrometers. The sea was calm, rolling in lazy folds under the ship, which scarcely condescended to notice them. She is a wonder! In default of anything else, it was something to lie on a sofa in the ladies’ saloon, and try to think you really were on the bosom of the Atlantic,—not a bulkhead creaking, not a lamp moving, not a glass jingling. Under the influence of an unknown current, the Great Eastern was drifting steadily against the wind. When the circumstance was noticed, it could only be referred to the “Gulf Stream,” which is held answerable for a good many things all over the world. At 4 p.m. the buoy was supposed to be 15 miles N.W. ½ N. of us, the wind being E.S.E., but it was only out of many calculations Captain Moriarty and Captain Anderson created a hypothetical position. There had been no good observation for three days, and until we could determine the ship’s position exactly, and get a good wind to drift down on the Cable, it would be quite useless to put down the grapnel.
The buoy was supposed to be some 12 miles distant from the end of the Cable, and not far from the slack made by the Great Eastern. If we got this slack, the Cable would come up more easily on the grapnel. Of course, if the buoy had been ready when the Cable broke, it would have been cast loose at the spot where the wire rope and grapnel sank. If the Cable could be caught, it was proposed either to place a breaking strain upon it, so as to get a loose end and a portion of slack, and then to grapple for it a second time within a mile or so of the end, or to try and take it inboard without breaking. Some suggested that the Great Eastern should steam at once to Trinity Bay, where the fleet was lying, and ask the admiral for a couple of men-of-war to help us in grappling; but those acquainted with our naval resources declared that it would be useless, as the ships would have no tackle aboard fit for the work, and could not get it even at Halifax. Others recommended an immediate return to England for a similar purpose, to get a complete outfit for grappling before the season was advanced, and to return to the end of the Cable, or to a spot 100 miles east of it, where the water is not so deep. What was positive was, that more than 1,100 miles of the most perfect Cable ever laid, as regards electricalconditions, was now lying three-quarters of the way across from Valentia to Newfoundland.
Monday, Aug. 7th.—During the night it was raining, fogging, drizzling, clouding over and under, doing anything but blowing, and of course as we drifted hither and thither,—the largest float that currents and waves ever toyed with,—we had no notion of any particular value of our whereabouts. But at 4 a.m. a glimpse was caught of the Terrible lying-to about 6 miles distant, and we steered gently towards her and found that she was keeping watch over the buoy, which was floating apparently 2 miles away from her. Our course was W.N.W. till we came nearly abreast of the buoy shortly before 9 a.m., when it was altered to N.W. The wind was light and from the northward, and the Great Eastern steamed quietly onwards that she might heave over the grapnel and drift down on the line of the Cable when the fog cleared and the wind favoured.
The feat of seamanship which was accomplished, and the work so nearly consummated, was so marvellous as to render its abrupt and profitless termination all the more bitter. The remarkable difficulty of such a task as Staff-Commander Moriarty and Captain Anderson executed cannot be understood without some sort of appreciation of the obstacles before them. The Atlantic Cable, as we sadly remember, dropped into the unknown abyss on Aug. 2. We had no soundings. In the night the Great Eastern drifted and steamed 25 miles from the end of the Cable—then bore away with a grapnel overboard, and 2,500 fathoms of wire rope attached, and steered so as to come across the course of the Cable at the bottom. On the morning of Aug. 3rd, the increasing strain on the line which towed the grapnel gave rise to hope at first, and finally to the certainty, that the ship had caught the Cable. At 3·20 o’clock, p.m., Greenwich time, when about 900 fathoms of grapnel line had been hauled in, the head of a swivel pin broke, and 1,400 fathoms of line, with grapnels and Atlantic Cable, went down to the bottom. Then the Great Eastern drifted again in a fog whilst preparing for another trial to drag the Cable up from the sea, and on 4th August, with an apparatus devised on board, got doubtful soundings, from which it was estimated that the water was about 2½ miles deep. A buoy placed on a raft, which sunk so deep that only a small flagstaff and black bulb were visible, was let go, with a mushroom anchor and 2½ miles of Cable attached to it, into this profound; but as it was not ready when the Cable broke, the buoy was slipped over at the distance of some miles from the place where the fatal fracture took place, in the hope and belief that the anchor would come up somewhere near the slack caused by the picking-up operations. Still in fog, which shut the Terrible out of sight, the Great Eastern prepared for another attempt. Next day(August 5), with the assistance of the Terrible, she came upon the buoy, and having steamed away to a favourable position, so as to come down on the course of the Cable again, remained drifting and steaming gently, on the look-out for the buoy, which it was very difficult to discover owing to the fog and to the current and winds acting on the ship. The weather did not permit any observations for longitude to be made during the whole of this period. On Aug. 7th we passed the buoy and steered N.W., and at 11·10 a.m., ship’s time, 1·47 p.m., Greenwich time, another grapnel, with 2,500 fathoms of wire rope, was thrown over, and the Great Eastern, with a favourable wind, was let drift down on the course of the Cable, about half way between the buoy and the broken end. At 12·5 ship’s time, the grapnel touched the bottom in 2,500 fathoms water, having sunk, owing to improved apparatus, in half the time consumed in the first operation. In six hours afterwards, the eyes which were watching every motion of the ship so anxiously, perceived the slightest possible indication that the grapnel was holding on at the bottom, and that the ship’s head was coming up towards the northward. It is not possible to describe the joyous excitement which diffused itself over the Great Eastern as, with slowly-increasing certitude, she yielded to the strain from the grapnel and its prize, and in an hour and a-half canted her head from E. by S. ½ S., to E. ¾ North. The screw was used to bring up her bow to the strain, and the machinery of the picking-up apparatus, much improved and strengthened, was set in motion to draw in the grapnel by means of the capstan and its steam power. The strain shown by the indicator increased from 48 cwt. to 66 cwt. in a short time; but the engines did their work steadily till 8·10, when one of the wheels was broken by a jerk, which caused a slight delay. The grapnel-rope was, however, hauled in by the capstan at a uniform rate of 100 fathoms in 40 minutes; but the strain went on gradually increasing till it reached 70 cwt. to 75 cwt. At 11·30 p.m., ship’s time, or 2·5 a.m., Greenwich, 300 fathoms were aboard, and at midnight all those who were not engaged on duty connected with the operation retired to rest, thankful and encouraged. In the words of our signal to the Terrible, all was going on “hopefully.” Throughout our slumbers the clank of the machinery, the shrill whistles to go on ahead, or turn astern, sounded till morning came, and when one by one the citizens of our little world turned up on deck, each felt, as he saw the wheels revolving and the wire rope uncoiling from the drums, that he was assisting at an attempt of singular audacity and success. A moonlight of great brightness, a night of quiet loveliness had favoured the enterprise, and the links of rope had come in one after another at a speed which furnished grounds for hope that if the end of the day witnessed similar progress, the Cable would be at the surface before nightfall.
G. McCulloch, lith from a drawing by R. Dudley London, Day & Sons, Limited, Lith. INTERIOR OF ONE OF THE TANKS ON BOARD THE GREAT EASTERN. CABLE PASSING OUT.[larger view]G. McCulloch, lith from a drawing by R. Dudley London,Day & Sons, Limited, Lith.INTERIOR OF ONE OF THE TANKS ON BOARD THE GREAT EASTERN. CABLE PASSINGOUT.
E. Walker, lith from a drawing by R. Dudley London, Day & Sons, Limited, Lith. LAUNCHING BUOY ON AUGUST 8TH IN LAT 51° 25´ 30´´ LONG. 38° 56´ (MARKING SPOT WHERE CABLE HAD BEEN GRAPPLED).[larger view]E. Walker, lith from a drawing by R. DudleyLondon, Day & Sons, Limited, Lith.LAUNCHING BUOY ON AUGUST 8TH IN LAT 51° 25´ 30´´ LONG. 38° 56´ (MARKINGSPOT WHERE CABLE HAD BEEN GRAPPLED).
7
August 8th.—This morning, about 7·30, one mile—one thousand fathoms—had been recovered, and was coiled on deck. The Cable, however, put out a little more vigour in its resistance, and the strain went up to 80 cwt., having touched 90 cwt. once or twice previously. No matter what happened, the perseverance of the engineers and seamen had been so far rewarded by a very extraordinary result. They had caught up a thin Cable from a depth of 2,500 fathoms, and had hauled it up through a mile of water. They were hauling at it still, and all might be recovered. But it was not so to be. Our speculations were summarily disposed of—our hopes sent to rest in the Atlantic. Shortly before 8 o’clock, an iron shackle and swivel at the end of a length of wire rope came over the bow, passed over the drums, and had been wound three times round the capstan, when the head of the swivel bolt “drew,” exactly as the swivel before it had done, and the rope, parting at once, flew round the capstan, over the drums, through the stops, with the irresistible force on it of a strain, indicated at the time or a little previously, of 90 cwt. It is wonderful no one was hurt. The end of the rope flourished its iron fist in the air, and struck out with it right and left, as though it were animated by a desire to destroy those who might arrest its progress. It passed through the line of cablemen with an impatient sweep, dashed at one man’s head, was only balked by his sudden stoop, and menacing from side to side the men at the bow, who fortunately were few in number, and were warned of the danger of their position, splashed overboard. All had been done that the means at the disposal of engineers and officers allowed. The machinery had been altered, improved, tested—every shackle and swivel had been separately examined, and several which looked faulty had been knocked off and replaced, but in every instance the metal was found to be of superior quality. It was 7·43 a.m., ship’s time, exactly, when the rope parted. The sad news was signalled to the Terrible, which had been following our progress anxiously and hopefully during the night. Her flags in return soon said, “Very sorry,” and she steamed towards the Great Eastern immediately. Mr. Canning and Mr. Gooch, and others, consulted what was best to be done, and meantime the buoy and raft which had been prepared in anticipation of such a catastrophe as had occurred, were lowered over the bows with a mooring rope of 2,500 fathoms long, attached to a broken spur-wheel. The buoy was surmounted by a rod with a black ball at the top over a flag red, white, and red, in three alternate horizontal stripes, and on it were the words and letters:—“Telegraph, No. 3.” It floated rather low on a strong raft of timber, with corks lashed at the corners, and by observation and reckoning it was lowered in Lat. 51° 25´ 30´´, Long. 38° 56´. The old buoy at the time it was slipped bore S.E. by E. 13 miles from the Great Eastern. As there were stillnearly 1,900 fathoms of wire rope on board, and some 500 fathoms of Manilla hawser, Mr. Canning resolved to make a third and last attempt ere he returned to Sheerness. Captain Anderson warned Mr. Canning that from the indications of the weather, it was not likely he could renew his search for two or three days, but that was of the less consequence, inasmuch as it needed nearly that time for Mr. Canning’s men to secure the shackles and prepare the apparatus for the third trial.
At 9·40 a.m., just as the buoy had gone over, a boat came alongside from the Terrible, and Mr. Prowse, the First Lieutenant, boarded us to know what we were going to do, to compare latitude and longitude, and to report to Captain Napier the decision arrived at by the gentlemen connected with the management of the Expedition. The Great Eastern had still about 3,500 tons of coal remaining, and the Terrible could wait three days more, and still keep coal enough to enable her to reach St. John’s. At 11·30 the Great Eastern stood down to the second buoy, for the purpose of fixing its exact locality by observation. Soon afterwards the weather grew threatening, and at 2 p.m. we were obliged to put her head to the sea, which gradually increased till the Great Eastern began for the first time to give signs and tokens that she was not a fixture. The Terrible stood on ahead on our port side, and for some time we kept the buoy equi-distant between us. At night, the wind increased to half a gale, and it was agreed on all sides that though the Great Eastern could have paid out the Cable with the utmost ease, she could not have picked up, and certainly could not have kept the grapnel line and Cable under her bows in such weather. But the steadiness of the vessel was the constant theme of praise. During the night she just kept her head to the sea. The Terrible, which got on our port and then on our starboard bow, signalled to us not to come too close, and before midnight her lights were invisible on our port quarter—one funnel down.
Aug. 9th.—Our course was W.N.W. during the night; weather thick and rainy—strong southerly wind; sea running moderately high. At 6 a.m., having run by reckoning 35 miles from the buoy, our course was altered to E.S.E., so as to bring us back to it. The state of the weather delayed the artificers in their work. It rained heavily, the deck was by no means a horizontal plane, and it was doubtful if Mr. Canning and Mr. Clifford, using all possible diligence, could get tackle and machinery in order before the following forenoon, so that it was not necessary to make any great speed. The reputation of the ship was enhanced in the eyes and feelings of her passengers by the manner in which she had behaved in the undoubtedly high breeze and heavy sea. The former was admitted by sailors to be a “gale,” though they seemed to think the force of the wind was affected bythe addition of the prefix “summer,” as if it mattered much at what time of the year a gale blows. The latter, when we turned tail and went before it, soon developed a latent tendency in the Great Eastern to obey the rules governing bodies floating on liquids under the action of summer gales. She rolled with a gravity and grandeur becoming so large a ship once in every 11 or 12 seconds; but on descending from the high decks to the saloon, one found no difficulty in walking along from end to end of it without gratuitous balancings or unpremeditated halts and progresses. It was a grey, gloomy, cloudy sea and sky—not a sail or a bird visible. In the forenoon the Terrible came in sight, lying-to with her topsail set, and it was hoped she was somewhere near the buoy. At noon our position was ascertained by observation to be Lat. 51° 29´ 30´, Long. 39° 6´ 0´´. Great Eastern, as soon as she was near enough, asked the Terrible, “Do you see the buoy?” After a time, the answer flew out, “No.” Then she added that she was “waiting for her position,” and that she “believes the buoy to be S.S.E.” of us. Our course was altered S. by E. ½ E, and the look-out men in the top swept the sea on all sides. The Terrible also started on the search. At 3·20 p.m. the two ships were within signalling distance again—sea decreasing, wind falling fast. The Terrible asked, “Did you see buoy?” which was answered in negative, and then inquired if the Great Eastern was going to grapple again, which was replied to in the affirmative—Captain Anderson busy in one cabin and Staff-Commander Moriarty busy in another, working diagrams and calculations, and coming nearer and nearer to the little speck which fancies it is hidden in the ocean: with very good reason, too, for the search after such an object on such a field as the Atlantic, ruffled by a gale of wind, might well be esteemed of very doubtful success. But the merchant captain and the naval staff-commander were not men to be beaten, and in keen friendly competition ran a race with pencils and charts to see who could determine the ship’s position with the greatest accuracy, being rarely a mile apart from each other in the result. The only dubious point related to the buoy itself, for it might have drifted in the gale, it might have gone down at its moorings, or the Cable might have parted. There were strong currents, as well as winds and waves. The moment the weather moderated in the forenoon, the whole body of smiths and carpenters, and workers in iron, metal, and wood, were set to work at the alterations in the machinery for letting out the grapnel and taking it in again. A little army of skilled mechanics were exercising on deck; workshops and forges were established, and some of the many chimneys which rise above the bulwarks of the Great Eastern, and put one in mind of the roofs of the streets seen from the railway approaches to London, began to smoke. The smiths forged new pins for the swivels, and made new shackles and swivels; the carpenters made casingsfor capstan; ropemakers examined and secured the lengths of wire rope, and a new hawser was bent on to make up for the deficiency of buoy rope. At last, the much-sought-for object was discovered—the buoy was visible some 2 miles distant. The Great Eastern made haste to announce the news to the Terrible, and just as her flags were going aloft, a fluttering of bunting was visible in the rigging of the Terrible, and the signalman read her brief statement that the buoy was where we saw it was, thus proving that both vessels dropped on it at the same time. The finding of the little black point on the face of the Atlantic was a feat of navigation which gave great satisfaction to the worthy performers and the spectators. A little before 5 o’clock the Great Eastern was abreast of the buoy. The Terrible came up on the other side of it, and the Great Eastern and the man-of-war lay-to watching the tiny black ball, which bobbed up and down on the Atlantic swell, intending to stay by it as closely as possible till morning. By dint of energetic exertion, Mr. Canning hoped to have his grapnel and tackle quite ready the moment the ship was in position on the morrow. It was a sight to behold the deck at night—bare-armed Vulcans wielding the sledge—Brontes, Steropes, and Pyracmon at bellows, forge, and anvil—fires blazing—hailing sparks flashing along the decks—incandescent masses of iron growing into shape under the fierce blows—amateurs and artists admiring—the sea keeping watch and ward outside, and the hum of voices from its myriad of sentry waves rising above the clank of hammers which were closing the rivets up of the mail in which we were to do battle with old ocean for the captive he holds in his dismal dungeons below. Will he yield up his prisoner?
Aug. 10th.A more lovely morning could not be desired—sea, wind, position—all were auspicious for the renewed attempt, which must also be the last if our tackle break. A light breeze from the west succeeded to the gale, and a strong current setting to the eastward prevailed over it, and carried the Great Eastern nearly 7 miles dead against the wind from 9 p.m. last night till 4 a.m. this morning, thus taking her away from the buoy. The swell subsided, and such wind as there was favoured the plan to drift across the course of the Cable about a mile to westward of the place where the last grapnel was lost. Without much trouble the Great Eastern, having come upon the first buoy, caught the second buoy, and both were in sight at the same moment. Authorities differed concerning their distance. One maintained they were 7½ miles, the other that they were 10 miles apart. At 10·30, Greenwich time, when we were between 1½ and 1¾ mile distant from the course of the Cable, the buoy bearing S.S.E., the grapnel was thrown over, and 2,460 fathoms of wire rope and hawser were paid out in 48 minutes.
As there was a current still setting against the easterly wind, which had increased in strength, Captain Anderson at first got all fore-and-aft canvas on the ship, to which were added afterwards her fore and maintopsails; her course was set N.W. by N., but she made little headway, and drifted to S.W. At 11·10 a.m., ship’s time, an increased strain on the grapnel line was shown by the dynamometer, and at the same time the head of the Great Eastern began to turn slowly northwards from her true course.
The square-sails were at once taken in. Great animation prevailed at the prospect of a third grapple with the Cable. But in a few moments the hope proved delusive, and the ship continued to drift to S. and W., the buoy bearing S.E. The bow swept round, varying from W. and by N. to N. W. and by N. At noon the Great Eastern, if all reckonings were right, was but half a mile from the Cable, and the officers hoped she would come across it about half a mile west of the spot where she last hooked it. But at 3·30 p.m. the last hope vanished. The ship must by that time have long passed the course of the Cable. Captain Anderson had an idea that we grappled it for a moment soon after noon, when the ship’s head came 3 points to the N., and the strain increased for a moment to 60 cwt. The buoy was now 2½ to 3 miles E.—ship’s head being W.N.W. All that could be done was to take up grapnel, and make another cast for the Cable. The wind increased from eastward. At 4·15 p.m. ship’s head was set N. by E. by screw, in order to enable the grapnel line to be taken in, and the capstan was set to haul up the grapnel. The wire rope came over the bows unstranded, and in very bad condition. Much controversy arose respecting the cause of this mischief. Some, the practical men, maintaining it was because there were not swivels enough on it; others, the theoretical men, demonstrating that the swivels had nothing to do with the torsion or detorsion; and both arguing as keenly with respect to what was happening 2 miles below them in the sea as if they were on the spot. The process of pulling up such a length of wire is tedious, and although no one had expressed much confidence in the experiment, every one was chagrined at the aspect of the tortured wire as it came curling and twisting inboard from its abortive mission. At midnight 1000 fathoms had been hauled in.
August 11th.—Nothing to record of the night and early morning, save that both were fine, and that the capstan took in the iron fishing-line easily till 5·20 a.m., ship’s time, when the grapnel came up to the bows. The cause of the failure was at once explained: the grapnel could not have caught the Cable, because in going down, or in dragging at the bottom, the chain of the shank had caught round one of the flukes. From the condition of the rope it wascalculated that we were in only 1,950 fathoms of water, for nearly 500 fathoms of it were covered with the grey ooze of the bottom. The collectors scraped away at the precious gathering all the morning, and for a time forgot their sorrows.
E. Walker, lith from a drawing by R. Dudley London, Day & Sons, Limited, Lith. FORWARD DECK CLEARED FOR THE FINAL ATTEMPT AT GRAPPLING. AUGUST 11TH.[larger view]E. Walker, lith from a drawing by R. DudleyLondon, Day & Sons, Limited, Lith.FORWARD DECK CLEARED FOR THE FINAL ATTEMPT AT GRAPPLING. AUGUST 11TH.
It was now a dead calm, and Mr. Canning mustered his forces for another attempt for the Cable! He overhauled the wire rope, and exorcised hawsers out of crypts all over the ship.