408 THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. 



102. As the ship approaches the shore, where the sound- 

 ings give a rapidly decreasing depth, the deep-sea cable is cut 

 and the end buoyed. The ship then goes towards the land, 

 and, after sending the end of the thick cable ashore, pays it 

 out from the landing-place to the end of the cut cable, where 

 the shore end is put upon one of the ship's boats, which 

 proceeds to the buoy. The deep-sea cable is hauled up, and 

 the jointer, who is in the boat, makes the permanent con- 

 nection between the two cables. 



Testing joints on the sea is not done with the same pre- 

 cision as on shore. If the joint is made on board the ship, 

 which is sometimes the case in very calm weather, the joint 

 may be tested with the aid of a condenser. Made in the 

 boat, however, it is only possible to test the cable from the 

 shore for insulation, when the gutta-percha joint is dry and 

 when it is wet. The signal of approval being given by 

 hoisting a flag or otherwise, the joint is covered well up in 

 hemp, sheathed, and dropped overboard. Observations of 

 the bearings of the spot are taken, and any striking con- 

 figurations of the coast noted, in order to be able to return 

 to the spot and fish up the joint if it should become bad. 



103. Sealing up Faults; Hipp' s Method. A short cable, 

 insulated with gutta percha, laid between Bauen and Fluelen 

 along the "VValdstattersee, as part of the line between Lucerne 

 and Altorf, became so faulty as to allow the escape of nearly all 

 the current sent into it at either end. Either through bad 

 manufacture or exposure to the air for a time before sub- 

 mersion, the gutta-percha of this cable was found, on inquiry, 

 to be brittle, and it was therefore probable that the fault was 

 occasioned by cracks in the material, similar to those observed 

 in the short length examined. To take up the cable was 

 found to be impossible, as it had become deeply imbedded 

 in the mud of Lake Lucerne, and had not strength enough to 

 resist the force necessary to extricate it. 



Under these circumstances the repair of the faulty cable 

 appeared very doubtful, and it would have been impossible, 

 had not M. Hipp, the ingenious director of the Swiss tele- 

 graphs, luckily hit upon a method by which, if not perma- 



