336 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



this part of the voyage by a British man-of-war, which was 

 engaged in taking soundings for us. One of their midshipmen 

 joined us at Trinidad to receive their signals and interpret 

 them to our captain, I suppose on account of naval signals 

 not being known in the merchant service. The sailors having 

 returned to the ship, we proceeded on our voyage, paying out 

 cable day and night as before. 



On the second or third day the electrical staff reported a 

 flaw in the cable. The captain called out, "Full speed 

 astern." As soon as possible the paying-out was stopped, 

 the cable was cut, and it was found the faulty piece had not 

 left the ship. It took only an hour or two to cut out the 

 faulty piece, join up, and go on as before. 



This expeditious manner of dealing with faulty cables is 

 only possible on steamers. In the early days of cable enter- 

 prise they endeavoured to use sailing-ships towed by steamers 

 or tugs to lay cables. If our ship had been a sailing-vessel 

 she could not have been stopped in time, and the faulty piece 

 of cable must inevitably have left the ship. The result would 

 have been considerable loss of time in hauling the cable up 

 again from the bottom of the ocean. This incident, then, 

 illustrates one of several reasons why sailing-ships are not 

 now used in cable-laying. 



In the course of a few days we came in sight of our 

 destination, Santa Cruz. On arriving the ship anchored, and 

 next morning the shore end was landed as at Trinidad. 

 Here I left the " Hooper" to take charge of the shore station, 

 as two other cables had to be laid from this island. We had 

 a more comfortable structure to work in than had our fellow- 

 electricians in Trinidad, as there was a good-sized stone hut 

 erected on this beach. 



This brings me to notice that the cable electrician at the 

 shore station may have certain disagreeable experiences like 

 most other people, though I have none of my own to chronicle. 

 Some electricians, however, that we knew, who spent some 

 months at a cable hut in a lonely place in southern Brazil, 

 told us they used fco tire off guns at night to intimidate the 

 wild animals prowling about. The work of the shore elec- 

 tricians during cable-laying is to send five-minute signals to 

 the ship, which insures that the copper w'ire has not been 

 broken. They also have to hold themselves in readiness to 

 receive any instructions from the ship, and, if necessary, to 

 send any important message to the ship. They do not require 

 to test the cable till the work of laying is finished. 



No incident worth remark occurred while we were at 

 Santa Cruz, except the rupture of the copper conductor men- 

 tioned in the first part of this paper. The manufacturing 

 company is responsible for the cable for thirty days after the 



