1132 THE BELL SYSTEM TECHNICAL JOURNAL, SEPTEMBER 1957 



. CopdV cos a r~i 1 1^ 



A — — = -V-- — Constant i 



2 sm- a 



fjL, V Constants 



V Kinematic viscosity 



$, -q, I Rectangular coordinates for the three- ' 



dimensional model 



p Mass density of water . 



Pc , Pw Mass per unit length of cal)le in air .' 



and water 



Deviation from the stationary angle, ' 



also angle between ^ axis and V : 

 (Section 7.1) 



I. INTRODUCTION 



In the summer of 1857, the first attempted laying of a transatlantic 

 cable ended dismally when, after only a few hundred miles had been • 

 laid, the cable broke and fell into the sea. Although fouling of the pay- ' 

 out gear caused by a negligent workman was the principal suspected 

 reasons for the failure, its occurrence aroused great interest in the de- 

 tailed dynamics and kinematics of the laying of submarine cable, and 

 leading British scientists such as Kelvin and Airy published analyses of i, 

 this problem in late 1857 and early 1858.^ • ^ ■ » ■ ^ , & t 



However, after this initial activity, interest in submarine cable dy- i 

 namics and kinematics evidently waned for there appear only sporadic 

 subsequent investigations in the literature.^' '^' ^' ^' ^^ Further, the re- 

 sults of the early and subsequent analytical investigations have been, 

 by and large, little utilized in cable laying and recovery practice. One 

 can conjecture several reasons for this. For one, because the early ana- 

 lytical work was done before the advent of modern hydrodjaiamic theory, 

 it did not rest on a secure base. Thus, as late as 1875, one finds vigorous 

 debate over the nature of the tangential resistance of water to the cable.' 

 For another, the results of the analyses could not all be expressed in 

 terms of elementary functions and required the numerical evaluation of 

 some definite integrals. In the 1850's this was a tedious and laborious 

 process. However, these are probably secondary reasons. For, after 

 another failure in the early summer of 1858, a transatlantic cable was 

 successfully laid in August of that year. The mechanical problem of de- 

 positing a cable was thus proved surmountable without complicated 

 mathematical analyses, and the marriage of analysis and practice was 

 never fully realized. 



