THE SUBMARINE CABLE 



ated, and even the most short-sighted could see that the 

 scheme was no longer impossible or visionary. But 

 would a cable ever pay ? That was the vital question. 

 Cyrus Field thought it would, and his associates agreed 

 with him. Meanwhile shorter cables were being laid in 

 the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, and other places, 

 and both engineer and electrician were perfecting their 

 knowledge of cables and cable instruments. The Civil 

 War in America for a time diverted the efforts of the 

 cable company from attempting another transatlantic 

 cable. By the time of the close of the war, however, 

 in 1865, methods of cable-making, cable-laying, and 

 cable instruments had been so greatly improved that 

 the promoters of the original company had come to have 

 very great confidence in their project, and this feeling 

 was shared by many promoters, as shown by the fact 

 that other companies had been formed for the same 

 purpose. 



In 1865, therefore, the attempt to lay a cable across 

 the Atlantic was renewed. This cable differed con- 

 siderably in construction from the original one. It was 

 one and one-tenth inches in diameter and weighed 

 thirty-six hundred pounds per mile in the air, but only 

 fourteen hundred pounds in water. There had been so 

 many obvious disadvantages in the method of laying 

 the cable in sections by two ships that it was decided, 

 if possible, to have a single ship, carrying all the cable, 

 lay it directly from shore to shore if a ship large enough 

 to carry the enormous weight of the new cable could be 

 found. 



The ideal ship for this purpose was at that moment 

 [41] 



