i 7 8 
THE TELEGRAPH . 
get wrapped round it, so that with comparatively little exertion 
it may be brought up to the surface. On the coas's of Algeria 
ruptures have often been caused by coral-fishers. There are, 
indeed, official instructions prohibiting coral-fishing in certain 
places, but the coasts are not so strictly watched as formerly, 
and the coral-fishers often disregard the regulations laid down 
by the authorities. 
Repairs .—The operations required in the mending of cables 
are more numerous and more complicated than those required 
in laying them. We usually consider things dropped to the 
bottom of the sea at a great distance from land as utterly lost, 
and yet nowadays, when an interruption occurs in one of the 
cables in the Channel, in the Mediterranean, or even in the 
Atlantic, hardly a week or two passes before the cables are 
repaired, and the public hears of it without the least surprise. 
Yet the public is in general but little acquainted with the 
methods adopted for raising and repairing these slender cables 
lying at the bottom of the sea. The results are accepted as 
matters of course to which no importance is attached, while the 
submersion of the same cables has alwavs been considered as a 
great feat. Nay, more, even engineers and telegraphists them¬ 
selves are sometimes unacquainted with the principles upon 
which the repair of cables is carried on, often as the operation 
is required. 
The first attempt to repair a cable was made on that which 
connects England with the Hague. Mr. F. C. Webb, the 
engineer of the Electric and International Telegraph Company , 
who are the owners of the cable, undertook the operation in 
1853, and he has since carried it out in other cases. The rules 
he then laid down have since been generally adopted, but with 
some important modifications. 
The outfit of a vessel intended for these operations includes 
machines both for taking up and for laying, and these two 
operations must sometimes be carried on simultaneously. We 
shall describe the raising apparatus. Two large iron or wooden 
beams are firmly fixed on the forecastle, projecting above the 
cat-head, and between them turns a large pulley of from 2 to 3 
feet diameter, and from 8 to 12 inches wide. This pulley has 
a deep Y-shaped groove. Cast-iron cheeks bolted to the beams 
are fixed in each side of it, to prevent the lines or cables that 
