64 



NATURE 



{May 28, 1874 



Inhaling the vapour of a piece of camphor inclosed in a small 

 silver tube, and carried in the mouth like a cigar, has also, I 

 know, been used with effect. I have judged that the attacks 

 are, to a certain extent, connected with a depressed or relaxed 

 state of the system, partly from the time (early morning) when 

 I have found them at their worst, and partly from the (act that in 

 a pure bracing air like Switzerland I do not get them, even in 

 the haying season. A French lady witli whom I once travelled 

 by train tried to satisfy me I had only influenza {la gnppe), but 

 our passage through a hay-field soon brought on such a suc- 

 cession of sneezings, &c., that I was quickly accorded the honour 

 of a distinct disease. 



I tried the homoeopathic remedy of extract of hay grasses in 

 spirit, upon the advice of a friend, but I very soon came back 

 again to my allopathic doses of quinine and camphorated spirit, 

 and from these alone have I found any real benefit. I have not 

 yet tried the solution of quinine applied to the nostrils. 



Guildford, May iS J. Rand Capron 



THE STEAMSHIP "FARADAY" AND HER 

 APPLIANCES FOR CABLE-LAYING^^ 



THE lecturer in his introductory remarks observed 

 that an electric telegraph consisted essentially of 

 three parts, viz., the electro-motor or battery, the con- 

 ductor, and the receiving instrument. He deinonstrated 

 e.xperimcntplly that the conductor need not necessarily be 

 metallic,'but that water or rarefied air might be used as such 

 within moderate limits ; at the same time, for long sub- 

 marine lines, insulated conductors strengthened by an 

 outer sheathing were necessary to insure perfect trans- 

 mission and immunity from accident. The first attempts 

 at insulation, which consisted in the use of pitch and 

 resinous matter?, failed completely, and in the years 1846 

 and 1847 the two gums india-rubber and gutta-percha 

 were introduced, the former by Prof. Jacobi of St. Peters- 

 burg, and the latter by Dr. Werner Siemens of Berlin ; 

 this last gum soon became almost indispensable to the 

 cable manufacturer on account of its great plasticity and 

 ductility. 



The first outer sheathing used was a tube of lead drawn 

 tightly over the insulated wire, and this again was covered 

 with pieces of wrought-iron tubing connected by ball and 

 socket joints ; in this way the Messrs. Siemens success- 

 fully crossed various rivers. This method was superseded 

 later on by the spiral-wire sheathing, first proposed by Mr. 

 Bret in 185 1 for the Dover and Calais cable ; since then, 

 with few modifications and exceptions, this form has been 

 universally adopted. 



The lecturer next enumerated the casualties to which 

 submarine cables are liable, and the precautions employed 

 to obviate them. He showed specimens destroyed by rust 

 and the ravages of a species of Teredo. On the Indo- 

 European line a curious case of fracture occurred ; a 

 whale, becoming entangled in a portion of cable over- 

 hanging a ledge of rock, broke it, and in striving to get 

 free had so wound one end round its flul-;es that escape 

 became hopeless, and so had fallen an easy prey to 

 sharks, which had half devoured it when the grapplmg iron 

 brought his remains to the surface. Other enemies to be 

 dreaded are landslips, ships' anchors, and abrading cur- 

 rents. 



The new Atlantic cable consists, for the deep-sea por- 

 tion, of copper conductors, gutta-percha insulators, and a 

 sheathing of steel wires covered with hemp ; the shallow- 

 water part consists of similar conductors and insulators 

 sheathed with hemp, which in turn is covered with iron 

 wire. 



In paying out, the great point to be observed is that no 

 catenary should be formed, but that the cable should be 

 a straight line from the ship to the sea-bottom ; the re- 



* Abstract of a lecture delivered at the Royal Institution on May 15.— By 

 C. William Siemens, D.C.L., F.R.S. 



taining force should be equal to the weight of a piece of 

 cable hanging vertically downwards to the bottom of the 

 sea. In picking up, a catenary is formed, but a vertical 

 position is the best. 



From the peculiar nature of the service for which a 

 telegraph-ship is required, it is evident that she must pos- 

 sess properties somewhat different from those of ordinary 

 ocean-going steamers ; thus speed is rot "^ > important as 

 great mancouvring powers, which will enable her to turn 

 easily in a small space, or by which she may be main- 

 tained in a given position lor a considerable time. In 

 the ship about to be described an attempt has been made 

 to meet these requirements. 



The Faraday, of 5,000 tons register, was built at New- 

 castle by the eminent firm of Messrs. Mitchell & Co. ; 

 she is 360 ft. long, 52 ft. beam, and 36 ft. depth of hold ; 

 there are three large water-tight cable tanks having a 

 capacity of 110,000 cubic ft., these are each 27 ft. deep, 

 two are 45 ft. in diameter, and one is 37 ft., they can take 

 in 1,700 miles of cable ij in. in diameter. After the 

 cable is coiled in, the tanks are filled up with water to keep 

 it cool, for the lecturer had found, when conducting ex- 

 periments on the Malta and Alexandria cable with his 

 electrical resistance thermometer, that heat was sponta- 

 neously generated in the cable itself, whereby its insulation 

 was seriously endangered. 



The Faraday has stem and stern alike, and is fitted 

 with a rudder at each end ; both are v.'orked by steam- 

 steering apparatus placed amidships, and are capable of 

 being rigidly fixed when required. She is propelled by a 

 pair of cast steel screws 12 ft. in diameter, driven by a 

 pair of compound engines constructed with a view to great 

 economy of fuel. The two screws converge somewhat, 

 and the effect of this arrangement is to enable the vessel 

 to turn in her own length when the engines are worked 

 in opposite directions. On the voyage from Newcastle to 

 London a cask was thrown overboard, and from this as a 

 centre the ship turned in her own length in 8 minutes 20 

 seconds, touching the cask three times during the opera- 

 tion. This manoeuvring power is of great importance in 

 such a case as repairing a fault in the cable, as it enables 

 the engineer to keep her head in position, and, in short, to 

 place her just where necessary in defiance of side-winds or 

 currents. 



The testing-room of the electrician in charge is amid- 

 ships, and so placed as to command the two larger tanks, 

 while the ship's speed can be at all times noted on the 

 index of a Berthou hydrostatic log. 



The deck is fitted with machinery to be used in laying 

 operations, which will be best described by tracing the 

 path of the cable from the tanks to the sea. Let us begin 

 with the bow compartment : the cable, which lies coiled 

 round one of Newall's cones, begins to be unwound, 

 passes up through an eye carried on a beam placed across 

 the hatch, next over a large pulley fitted with guides, and 

 by a second pulley is gently made to follow a straight 

 wooden trough fitted with friction rollers, which carries it 

 aft to near the funnels ; here it passes through the 

 "jockey," which is a device for regulating the strain, con- 

 sisting of a wheel riding on the cable, which can be 

 adjusted by a lever, and a drum fitted with a brake, thence 

 it passes on to a "compound paying-out and picking-up 

 machine ; " this consists of a large drum provided with a 

 friction brake, and round it the cable passes three 

 times ; it is also furnished with a steam-engine, which 

 by means of a clutch can be geared on to the 

 drum when required. Now in paying out, the cable 

 causes the drum to revolve as it runs over it, and 

 the brakes regulate the speed as the vessel mo\es on- 

 ward ; but should a fault or other accident render it 

 necessary to recover a portion, the drum is stopped and 

 geared on to the engine, the ship's engines are reversed, 

 the stern-rudder fixed ; and so what was formerly the 

 bow is now the stern, while the little engine hauls in the 



