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Address on the Forces concerned in the Laying and Lifting of Deep-Sea Cables
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 September 2014
Extract
The forces concerned in the laying and lifting of deep submarine cables attracted much public attention in the years 1857–58.
An experimental trip to the Bay of Biscay in May 1858, proved the possibility, not only of safely laying such a rope as the old Atlantic cable in very deep water, but of lifting it from the bottom without fracture. The speaker had witnessed the almost incredible feat of lifting up a considerable length of that slight and seemingly fragile thread from a depth of nearly 2½ nautical miles.
- Type
- Proceedings 1865-66
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1866
References
page no 495 note * Throughout the following statements, the word mile will be used to denote (not that most meaningless of modern measures, the British statute mile) but the nautical mile, or the length of a minute of latitude, in mean latitudes, which is 6073 feet. For approximate statements, rough estimates, &c., it may be taken as 6000 feet, or 1000 fathoms.
page no 497 note * Precisely the movement of a battalion in line changing front.
page no 502 note * The strongest rope available was a quantity of rope of iron wire and hemp spun together, able to bear 14 tons, which was prepared merely as buoyrope (to provide for the contingency of being obliged, by stress of weather or other cause, to cut and leave the cable in deep or shallow water), and was accordingly all in 100 fathoms-lengths, joined by shackles with swivels. The wire and hemp rope itself never broke, but on two of the three occasions a swivel gave way. On the last occasion, about 900 fathoms of Manilla rope had to be used for the upper part, there not being enough of the wire buoyrope left; and when 700 fathoms of it had been got in, it broke on board beside a shackle, and the remaining 200 fathoms of the Manilla, with 1540 fathoms of wire-rope and the grapnel, and the electric cable which it had hooked, were all lost for the year 1865.