204 DESTRUCTION OF THE INDIAN LINE, REASONS. 



cable in the course of the extension of the line to 

 India. Our electricians attempted repairs indeed, where- 

 by all the more serious faults were removed, but new 

 ones constantly made their appearance, which already 

 in the following year rendered the whole line unservi- 

 ceable, since the cable in the Red Sea was held fast 

 at the bottom by coral formations and therefore could 

 not be raised and repaired. The reason of this un- 

 fortunate failure was mainly owing to the circumstance 

 that the contractors had laid the cable, not in deep 

 water in the middle of the sea, but near the Nubian 

 coast, in the proximity of the intermediate stations, 

 in shallow water, where the formation of coral pro- 

 ceeds very rapidly at the sea -bottom. People had 

 not yet come to see that with submarine cables not 

 cheapness but excellence is in the first place to be 

 aimed at. It was apt to be forgotten that a single 

 defect, if it cannot be repaired, spoils the whole cable, 

 and that from any defect of insulation, however small 

 a greater one is sure to arise in course of time. Al- 

 most all the submarine cables laid in early days by 

 the English both those in the Channel, in the 



Mediterranean and Red Sea, and also the first Atlantic 

 cable, which was laid in the summer of 1858 by the 

 engineer Whitehouse after an unsuccessful attempt in 

 the preceding year - - came to grief, because in the 

 construction and fittings, as well as in the testings and 

 laying, correct principles had not been followed. 



It was the perception of this fact that led the 

 English Government in the year 1859 to entrust the 



