.s'/A' \\'1 1.1.1 A.M .sy/i.J/A'.Y.V, l-.R.S. 115 



of the cable in that attempt. There was no occasion, however, for 

 tin- use of separate machines for paying out and picking up, and 

 machinery had previously been designed by himself for serving 

 the double purpose of paying out and picking up (shown in Figs. 

 1 to 8, Plates 8 to 1 0), which was made by Messrs. Easton and 

 Amos, and fitted on board the Dix Decembre, a French telegraph 

 ship that had done a great deal of actual service in laying and 

 picking up telegraph cables in the Mediterranean. The engine A, 

 Figs. 2 and 4, was placed on deck near the paying-out gear B, 

 at the stern of the vessel ; and the machinery was driven by the 

 strap C tightened by the hand lever D, so that it could be thrown 

 out of gear at any time. By this means he had frequently 

 reversed the action of the machinery from paying out to picking 

 up within only a minute or two, which he considered was a 

 point of special advantage in such operations, by admitting of 

 readily hauling in the cable for examination or repairs ; for if 

 any accident happened to the cable in paying out, such as any 

 -deficiency occurring in the electrical tests, it was most essential 

 that there should be facilities for picking up the cable immediately 

 and examining the injured place. In picking up by this arrange- 

 ment, the vessel had of course to be drawn backwards by the 

 strain upon the cable in being slowly hauled in ; and in the case 

 of a head wind this strain was diminished by working the ship's 

 engines slowly in the backward direction. The Dii Decembre had 

 been largely employed in picking up the Port Vendre and Minorca 

 cable and other old Mediterranean cables, hauling the cable in at 

 .the stern, with most satisfactory results. If, on the contrary, in 

 order to haul in the cable it had to be taken round along the 

 whole side of the vessel from the stern to the bows, there was very 

 great risk of injuring the cable, or of losing it altogether as occurred 

 in 1865, because during the whole time of making the change the 

 vessel was in effect riding at anchor upon the cable. He could 

 only suppose that that mode of procedure arose from the old notion 

 of sailors that the bows of a ship were the proper place for taking 

 in a cable, because the anchor rope was always taken in at that end. 

 In paying out a cable, the dynamometer for showing continuously 

 the strain under which the cable ran out was a most essential 

 instrument, and in the arrangement described in the paper a 

 weighted pulley working between guides rested upon the cable 



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