36 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



ingenuity and ability of an American engineer is due the creation of the 

 machinery through which the Atlantic cable was successfully laid ; but it 

 is in every wise incumbent on the committee to whom has been assigned 

 the ascertainment of the truth in this particular, to be cautious to make 

 DO claim on behalf of a fellow-countryman which, with those who know the 

 history of the proceedings, will not, in any particular, be sanctioned. In 

 this view of the duty which they have undertaken, your committee have 

 availed themselves of such sources of information as have been accessible 

 to them, and submit the following 



REPORT. 



The points that presented themselves to their consideration were : 



1st. Was the instrument then on board of the Niagara, like that used in 

 the first essay to lay the Atlantic Telegraph Cable, and if not, was it novel, 

 and if so, by whom was it designed 1 



2(1. If novel, who were the authors of its essential features ? 



3d. By whose authority was it constructed, and to whom was its design 

 and construction confided ? 



■ifh. If the instrument had proved inadequate in design, or insufiicient in 

 the proportion of its parts, who would have been held professionally re- 

 sponsible for its failure by those who authorized its construction ? 



In the investigations necessary to determine these points, the following 

 elements were arrived at, viz.: 



That the instrument employed in the first essay to lay the cable, desig- 

 nated by being described as having four sheaves, was held to have been 

 inadequate for its purpose without essential modifications in several of its 

 operations. 



That the essential features of this instrument were : that the cable in 

 its course was alternately carried in opposite directions, at every sheave ; 

 that as the sheaves had a common diameter and were geared to a common 

 speed, that the cable leaving the last sheave, being submitted to its own 

 tensile strain in suspension, the delivery of it was less than the supply of 

 it to the first sheave, an operation producing either a slip, or an accumula- 

 tion of slack, involving a surge or a slip in the cable, and that the cable 

 was parted twice from the effect of these operations in the first essay 

 to lay it. 



That the brake used, in connection with this instrument, by its want of 

 adaptation to the varying and sudden requirements of relaxation, was un- 

 suited to the safe control of an alternating resistance, one-third of which was 

 initially expended In the weight of the cable in suspension, and that the 

 bierlia of such brake was superior to the impulse consequent upon a demand 

 for cable, unless with the ready and never-failing cooperation of an opera- 

 tor stationed at the instrument. 



That the direction of the first essay was wholly confided to officers in 

 the employ of the Atlantic Telegraph Company, and that upon the return 

 01 the squadron after the first essay, the several officers commanding the 



