TELEGKAPH, ELECTRIC. 



777 



gated by the daily papers ; but a few persons 

 met in another place, and the Society was duly 

 formed, and at once put in vigorous operation 

 a large part of its resources coming from Mr. 

 Tappan, who was chosen President. A Na- 

 tional Convention was soon called at Philadel- 

 phia, ou motion of Evan Lewis of that city, 

 and the American Antislavery Society was 

 formed on the 4th of December, 1833, Mr. Tap- 

 pan being President, with the same persons as- 

 sociated as the Executive -Committee. To this 

 Society his contributions for several years were 

 a thousand dollars per month. 



In 1840 he felt constrained to leave the So- 

 ciety, under the belief that those who had 

 taken the control intended to use it in hostility 

 to the civil and religious institutions of the coun- 

 try, to dissolve the Union, break up the churches, 

 and undermine the chief societies of Christian 

 benevolence. From that time he took a less 

 conspicuous place before the public, though 

 always true to his principles, and ever doing 

 what he could for their advancement. Mr. Tap- 

 pan was a man of rare integrity and fidelity to 

 principle. 



TELEGKAPH, ELECTRIC. Another attempt 

 was made in 1865 to lay a telegraphic wire 

 across the Atlantic Ocean, connecting Valen- 

 tia Bay, Ireland, and the American coast at 

 Heart's Content, Newfoundland. The esti- 

 mated expense of making and laying the cable 

 was three millions of dollars. One-half this 

 amount had been subscribed to the stock of the 

 company, and in addition the Government of 

 the United States had engaged to give a max- 

 imum subsidy of seventy-five thousand dollars 

 a year, and the English Government one hun- 

 dred thousand dollars a year, so long as the 

 cable continued to work, each sum to go in 

 payment of the messages sent by the respective 

 Governments. The two Governments also give 

 a joint guaranty of eight per cent, on the cap- 

 ital expended while the line works. The 

 cable as manufactured was twenty-six hundred 

 miles in length, and one and one-eighth inches 

 in diameter. The weight of the mass was esti- 

 mated to be over five thousand tons. The 

 " core " or conductor was made of seven tine 

 copper wires twisted into a single strand and 

 insulated by a peculiar compound. Around 

 this "core" were four layers of gutta percha, in- 

 sulated with the same compound, and in turn 

 enclosed by eleven strong iron wires, each one 

 of which is carefully wound with Manilla thread 

 and saturated with tar, thus at once protecting 

 the gutta percha, and adding strength to the 

 cable. This cable was taken on board of the 

 steamer Great Eastern and stowed in the im- 

 mense iron tanks built on the lower deck. The 

 tanks were then filled with water. The ma- 

 chinery for the delivery of the cable was sim- 

 ilar to that used on a previous occasion, but 

 improved, like all the other appliances required. 

 The connection with the shore end was made, 

 and the work of laying the cable commenced 

 on July 21st. It continued, with occasional in- 



terruptions of the communication with the 

 shore, for eleven days. At this time an advance 

 of 1,062 miles had been made, and 1,186 miles 

 of the cable payed out, when a serious fault oc- 

 curred. In the efforts to discover and remove 

 this defect, the cable parted, and the land end 

 went overboard. All was now evidently lost, 

 unless it could be recovered by grapnels. The 

 steamer then moved some thirteen or fourteen 

 miles back from the spot wfiere the accident 

 occurred, and there lay to. The grapnels 

 weighed three hundred pounds each, and con- 

 sisted of two five-armed anchors, with flukes 

 sharply curved, and tapering to an oblique 

 tooth-like end. They were thrown overboard at 

 3.20 P. M., attached to a wire buoy rope five 

 miles in length. At first the iron sank slowly, 

 but soon the momentum of descent increased, 

 so as to lay great stress on the machinery. 

 Length flew after length over cog-wheel and 

 drum, till the iron, warming with work, heated 

 at last so as to convert the water thrown upon 

 the machinery into clouds of steam. 



The time passed heavily indeed ! All life had 

 died out in the vessel, and no noise was heard 

 except the dull grating of the wire cable over 

 the wheels at the bows. 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 two 

 thousand five hundred fathoms, or fifteen thou- 

 sand feet, the grapnel reached the bed of the 

 Atlantic, and set to its task of finding and hold- 

 ing the cable. Throughout the night the Great 

 Eastern drove over the Atlantic, dragging in 

 her course the grapnels and two miles and a 

 half length of line, with which she was fishing 

 for the cable. At 6.40 A. M., the picking-up 

 machine, reinforced by the capstan, was set to 

 work to haul up the line, which bore a strain of 

 ten tons. At first it came up easily, and the 

 dynamometer showed only a strain of eighteen 

 hundred pounds, but the resistance of the rope 

 rapidly increased till it reached a point indicat- 

 ed by seventy hundred pounds. At 7.15 A. M., 

 one hundred fathoms had been recovered. At 

 7.25, two hundred fathoms, the strain increas- 

 ing to seventy-five hundred pounds. At 8 A. M., 

 three hundred fathoms were in, and it became 

 evident to all on board that the grapnel was 

 holding on and lifting " something " from the 

 bottom. And what could that something be 

 but the cable ? The scientific men calculated 

 the strain, and determined it could not be froiu 

 the wire rope and grapnel solely, and it could 

 only be inferred then that, as the bottom of 

 the Atlantic is free from rocks there, and as the 

 depth at which the rope began to resist agreed 

 with the supposed soundings, it had really 

 grappled the prize. At 8.9, the spur wheel 

 of the picking-up apparatus broke, and the 

 operation of taking in the rope became dan- 

 gerous as well as difficult. The weather, which 

 had been very thick and hazy, now settled 

 down into a dense fog ; but the conviction that 

 the cable was surely once more attached to the 



