ON THE FORCES CONCERNED IN 

 THE LAYING AND LIFTING OF 

 DEEP-SEA CABLES. 



[Address delivered before the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 

 December iZth, 1865.] 



THE forces concerned in the laying arid lifting 

 of deep submarine cables attracted much public 

 attention in the years 1857-58. 



An experimental trip to the Bay of Biscay in May 

 1858, proved the possibility, not only of safely 

 laying such a rope as the old Atlantic cable in very 

 deep water, but of lifting it from the bottom with- 

 out fracture. The speaker had witnessed the almost 

 incredible feat of lifting up a considerable length 

 of that slight and seemingly fragile thread from a 

 depth of nearly 2\ nautical miles. 1 The cable had 



1 Throughout the following statements, the word mile will be 

 used to denote (not that most meaningless of modern measures, the 

 British statute mile) but the nautical mile, or the length of a minute 

 of latitude, in mean latitudes, which is 6,073 feet. For approximate 

 statements, rough estimates, &c., it may be taken as 6,000 feet, or 

 1,000 fathoms. 



