THE SUBMARINE CABLE 



and better picking-up machinery had been devised, 

 and on June 30, 1866, the Great Eastern again started 

 laying another cable. Fourteen days later her work 

 was completed successfully, and communication between 

 the continents began at once. Not satisfied with this 

 success, the great ship returned to the scene of her 

 mishap of the preceding summer, and after overcoming 

 many difficulties succeeded in grappling the broken 

 end of the cable of '65, spliced it to' a new cable, and 

 completed the second workable cable within a few 

 weeks after the completion of the first. 



This was about the first and last useful work of any 

 kind ever accomplished by the Great Eastern. It was 

 perhaps enough for any one vessel to have accomplished 

 the "greatest undertaking of the century." But this un- 

 dertaking was the only useful purpose to which the boat 

 could be put, and a few years later she was broken up. 



Since the completion of the 1866 cable great advances 

 have been made in all phases of submarine telegraphy. 

 At present the total number of miles of such cables is 

 considerably over two hundred thousand, their cost 

 being from one thousand to fifteen hundred dollars per 

 nautical mile. The most expensive single item of ex- 

 pense in these cables is the cost of the gutta-percha 

 used, but as nothing less expensive has been found to 

 replace it, this great cost is unavoidable. 



Obviously with these two hundred thousand and more 

 miles of cable, repairs are constantly necessary. But 

 repairing submarine cables to-day is not the onerous 

 task that it was in the early days of cable-laying. When 

 a fault or fracture occurs at the present time, it is possible 



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