THE CABLE SHIP ON REPAIRS. 



305 



Mr. F. Alex. Taylor described in The Electrician of Feb- 

 ruary 26, 1897, a novel plan, by a French telegraph engineer, 

 of lifting a buoyed cable-end without lowering a boat for the 

 work, and therefore free from all the risk described. The method 

 was successfully adopted on an important cable-laying expedi- 

 tion, when the weather was too rough to even allow of a boat 

 being lowered without danger to the men. The ship (of 3,500 

 gross tonnage), working in 2,800 fathoms, first let down a 



Fig. 



Buoy with Central Chaiu. 



centipede grapnel to 200 fathoms and then steamed round the 

 buoy at about 50 fathoms* distance until the grapnel and rope 

 became entangled, as they very soon did, with the buoy 

 moorings, which were then hauled In on the bight and the 

 buoy cleared from the bow baulks. By this means not only 

 was the end of the cable readily brought on board without risk 

 and with very little trouble, but several days of valuable time, 

 which would otherwise have been lost in waiting for the weather 

 to moderate sulficlently, were saved, and the cable was success- 



