THE SUBMARINE CABLES OF THE WORLD 
By Gustave Herrle 
The English give Professor (afterward Sir) Charles MTieat- 
stone the credit of being the originator of submarine cables, that 
gentleman having laid before the House of Commons in 1840 a 
sclieme for the laying of a telegraph cable across the channel 
between Dover and Calais, but his plans do not seem to have 
been fully matured. 
In tlie United States, in 1842, Professor S. F. B. INIorse experi- 
mented witli a sulmiarine cable l^etween Castle Garden and 
Governor’s island, New York harbor, and a year later, in detail- 
ing the results of his exi)eriments with an electro-magnetic tele- 
graph in a letter to the then Secretary of the Treasury, J. C. 
Spencer, he said : 
. . . The i>ractical inference from this law is that a tele' 
grai^hic communication on the electro-magnetic plan may with 
certainty be established across the Atlantic. Startling as this 
may seem now, I am confident the time will come when this 
project will l^e realized.” . . . 
It was not, however, until 1850 that the first submarine cable 
in the open sea was laid. This was the cable across the channel 
between Dover and Calais. It was made of copper wire, covered 
with gutta-percha to half an inch in diameter, the shore ends of 
the wire being doubly covered with cotton, overlaid Avith a coat- 
ing of India rubber, and the whole inclosed in a thick lead pipe. 
This cable did not work successfully, on account of defective in- 
sulation, and had to be aljandoned. Another authority states 
that telegraphic communication was maintained for a few hours, 
Avhen it Avas suddenly interrupted, the cause being, as AA'as after- 
Avards discovered, the cutting of the cable by a French fisher- 
man, who, it is said, exhibited a piece of it to the astonished 
})eoj)le of a neighl)oring town as a rare specimen of sea-Aveed Avith 
its center filled Avith gold. Be that as it may, to guard against 
such casualities tlie ucav cable, laid in the folloAving year (1851), 
betAveen Dover and Calais, Avas made much stronger, consisting 
of a wire insulated Avith gutta-percha and forming a core to a 
Avire rope as a jirotector. This calde Avas an entire success, arid. 
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