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Mechanics magazine
- Bandzählung
- N.S. 5=74.1861
- Erscheinungsdatum
- 1861
- Sprache
- Englisch
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- A146
- Vorlage
- Universitätsbibliothek Chemnitz
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- Universitätsbibliothek Chemnitz
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- urn:nbn:de:bsz:14-db-id507363582-186100013
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- http://digital.slub-dresden.de/id507363582-18610001
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- Projekt: Bestände der Universitätsbibliothek Chemnitz
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Mechanics magazine
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Band N.S. 5=74.1861
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- Titelblatt Titelblatt -
- Register Index I
- Ausgabe January 4, 1861 1
- Ausgabe January 11, 1861 19
- Ausgabe January 18, 1861 33
- Ausgabe January 25, 1861 49
- Ausgabe February 1, 1861 69
- Ausgabe February 8, 1861 85
- Ausgabe [February 15, 1861] -
- Ausgabe February 22, 1861 121
- Ausgabe March 1, 1861 137
- Ausgabe March 8, 1861 153
- Ausgabe March 15, 1861 173
- Ausgabe March 22, 1861 189
- Ausgabe March 29, 1861 211
- Ausgabe April 5, 1861 227
- Ausgabe April 12, 1861 243
- Ausgabe April 19, 1861 259
- Ausgabe April 26, 1861 281
- Ausgabe May 3, 1861 297
- Ausgabe May 10, 1861 313
- Ausgabe May 17, 1861 329
- Ausgabe May 24, 1861 345
- Ausgabe May 31, 1861 361
- Ausgabe June 7, 1861 377
- Ausgabe June 14, 1861 393
- Ausgabe June 21, 1861 409
- Ausgabe June 28, 1861 425
- Ausgabe No. 106 I
- Ausgabe No. 107 I
- Ausgabe No. 108 I
- Ausgabe No. 109 I
- Ausgabe No. 110 I
- Ausgabe No. 111 I
- Ausgabe No. 112 I
- Ausgabe No. 113 I
- Ausgabe No. 114 I
- Ausgabe No. 115 I
- Ausgabe No. 116 I
- Ausgabe No. 117 I
- Ausgabe No. 118 I
- Ausgabe No. 119 I
- Ausgabe No. 120 I
- Ausgabe No. 121 I
- Ausgabe No. 122 I
- Ausgabe No. 123 I
- Ausgabe No. 124 I
- Ausgabe No. 125 I
- Ausgabe No. 126 I
- Ausgabe No. 127 I
- Ausgabe No. 128 I
- Ausgabe No. 129 I
- Ausgabe No. 130 I
- Ausgabe No. 131 I
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THE MECHANICS’ MAGAZINE. LONDON: FRIDAY, MAY 3, 18G1. TILE PROGRESS OF DEEP SEA TELEGRAPHY. The Board of Trade report, to wliieli we al luded in our last number, will materially aid, we trust, in raising the true issue in respect to this great question of deep sea telegraphy. We believe it can he shown that in every in stance the want of success is attributable to circumstances which can be readily avoided in future, and which may be proximately compre hended in the following category:—1st. The traffic in concessions and monopolies.—2nd. The contests of rival contractors.—3rd. The false economy displayed in regulating the size of the conductor, and the quantity of insulation.— 4th. The inadequacy of the tests applied during manufacture.—5th. The inordinate and unne cessary haste which has prevailed in the manu facture of cables.—6th. The absence of any useful or properly-conducted practical experi ments with various and differently-constituted cables, so as to determine from facts the form and specific gravity most suitable for deep water.—7th. The insufficient soundings and imperfect examination of the route to be tra versed.—8th. The inconsiderate and unskilful manner in which the specifications and con tracts have been drawn, whereby, in some in stances, an actual premium has been offered to cupidity and extortion. Finally, we wish it were in our power to omit a cause of injury to submarine telegraph property, disclosing an amount of moral turpitude which, for the sake of civilized humanity, we would fain disbelieve in, were it possible; but it is, indeed, too true that malicious damage has, in more than one instance, we fear, been the ruin, partial or otherwise, of electric cables. In enumerating avoidable sources of mischief, it would be ungenerous to those individuals, of whom there are many, who have laboured with ardour and bonajides upon a work so new and untried, at first, as that of submarine tele graphy, were we to omit due reference to that source of error which for some time was, doubtless, to a great extent unavoidable in such an undertaking—namely, its novelty, and the consequent absence of experience as a guide to the required operations and precautions. Great credit is due to many of these gentlemen for their sagacity, pluck, and perseverance, which, whenever they have been allowed fair play and due influence, have resulted in corresponding success. Had these been the men chiefly con sulted—had they been permitted to exercise a proper degree of control in these affairs—had their experience been allowed to bear its legiti mate fruit—had it wrought improvement in successive cables, and had the business of laying them displayed an adequate advance as the practice became larger, we might not complain: but truth forbids our assent to either of these propositions ; and it is therefore necessary, as preparatory to a new era in the science, to clear the ground of all the merely temporary obstructions which have been created by the efforts of charlatanism and cupidity, and to address the unbiassed mind to the solution of the few real difficulties which are still await ing consideration. Let us, therefore, without regarding the order of date, select, in the first instance, one of the most gigantic and illustrative of the failures in submarine telegraphy, premising that its history chiefly differs from that of some other similarly constituted schemes in the magnitude of the loss sustained, and in the degree of notoriety thereby achieved. We mean the Red Sea Company’s undertaking, and its connections. So far back as 1855, Mr. Lionel Gisborne, and Messrs. Newall and Company, had jointly obtained a concession for establishing a sub marine telegraph between the Dardanelles and Alexandria, with a monopoly of communication for 50 years. By a subsequent concession, Mr. Gisborne, as trustee for the same parties, was authorised to establish a submarine telegraph along the Bed Sea, on condition that the Dar danelles line was completed by December, 1858. There were,however,other competingprojects, one of which was being worked by Mr. J. W. Brett, who was endeavouring to induce the Austrian Government to contract with him to lay a telegraphic line between Ragusa and Alexandria, the other being a line favoured by the Indian Government, and recommended by SirW. O’Shaughnessy. This latter was intended to commence at Constantinople, and to terminate at Kurrachee, by way of Bussorah and the Persian Gulf. For a third project a company was actually formed, and they were in expec tation of receiving a conditional guarantee upon their capital; hut it was afterwards superseded, owing, in a measure, to the superior influence of the persons interested in the Red Sea scheme. Not being able, therefore, under these circum stances, to carry out the Dardanelles concession by means of a company, Mr. Gisborne sold it to Messrs. Newall, who undertook to lay the cable, at their own cost, by the time stipulated. This they attempted to do, with a cheap and ill-con structed cable, but failed, by its breaking, after the paying-out ship had hung on to it for 36 hours, in heavy weather. The Ottoman Go vernment were, however, induced, in 1859, to renew this concession, granting Messrs. Newall £4,500 a-year on completion of the Dardanelles line, and containing the following extraordinary clause:— “Article 3. “ As this telegraphic line is the continuation of the telegraphic line to India, passing by the lied Sea, and will at the same time join the different points mentioned in the preceding articles—the Conces sionaires engage positively not to join this electric telegraph to any foreign telegraph, and not to trans mit despatches, passing by or arriving from any where but parts of the Ottoman Empire where it touches. On its side the Ottoman Government, having granted for the said term of fifty years to Messrs. R. S. Newall and Co. the exclusive privi lege of the working of this telegraph, engages not to permit the establishment of any other electric tele graph lines between the States of other Powers and the Mediterranean Coast of the Ottoman Empire in Asia and Egypt. Nevertheless the establishment of a branch from Syra to Scio, solely for the transmis sion of despatches concerning Greece, having been granted to the Hellenic Government, before the signa ture of the present convention, this branch shall be an exception to this clause.” It will be seen that tlie effect of this clause was to place the Red Sea project entirely at the mercy of Messrs. Newall, and to frustrate the desire so earnestly expressed in this country for direct and independent lines to connect our fortresses of Gibraltar and Malta with the south-west of England, and thus, by way of Malta and Alexandria, to form a continuous and national route to Alexandria, and onward to India. Every message would have had to pass over Messrs. Newall’s lines, and the monopoly would of course have been of enormous value. We shall see presently how it operated upon the interests of the Red Sea Company. Mean while the English Government on the one hand were earnestly endeavouring to induce the Ottoman Government to cancel this arrange ment, while Messrs. Newall were making all the haste in their power to complete and finally close the concession by laying their cable between Constantinople and Alexandria. The first attempt having been made with a hempen cable, of which a considerable balance remained on hand, they covered it round with iron, but only very slightly, so that, in fact, the hemp was visible beneath it. Nevertheless, this cable, though never properly tested, and but thinly insulated with gutta percha, would in all probability have succeeded for a time, had the appliances for paying out been well managed. As it was, however, the cable was jammed and broken. Messrs. Newall then borrowed some of the Red Sea cable (at that time in course of manufacture), for the purpose of carrying out their concession; but here a false economy proved again disastrous. Instead of using all new cable, as they might have done, being 420 miles only, they first paid out sucessfully nearly 315 miles of the sound, new, lied Sea cable, and then tacked on the old iron- covered cable which had originally been part of failure No. 1; and by the time they had paid out 25 miles of it they were obliged to stop, and in attempting to haul it back they broke it. To comment upon such reckless management is needless. While all the matters just related had been progressing, the Red Sea Company had been formed, with £800,000 subscribed capital, and a guarantee from the British Government of 41- per cent., not conditional upon success, and we shall now see the force and bearing, in another direction, of the exclusive clause in the Dardanelles concession, which turns out a means of fixing, without competition, the ap pointments of engineer and contractor to the Red Sea Company, and thus forms a convenient “ hedge,” at the expense of the English Govern ment and the public, against the risks and losses of the Ottoman line. How all this was done is so well described in a letter, addressed by Glass, Elliot and Company to the Lords of the Treasury, on the 26th June, 1858, that we give that letter, which has never been contra dicted, exactly as we find it in the Blue Book. Messrs. Glass’s letter is as follows :— “We beg most respectfully to address your lordships on the subject of the proposed line of telegraph to India, by way of the Red Sea, which project is now under the consideration of your lordships, at the in stance of the Red Sea Telegraph Company. “ That your lordships may be fully informed of the circumstances which have led to this communication, it becomes necessary to lay before you the following brief history in connection with the progress of the undertaking, and our connection with the same:— “ In the year 1855, application was made to us by Mr. Lionel Gisborne, who represented himself as act ing for, and under, the authority of her Majesty’s Government, for information to enable him to prepare estimates for the carrying out of a telegraphic line to the East; and, on his assurance that we should be placed in a position to tender for the execution of the work, upon his completing certain arrangements with the Turkish Government, we provided the necessary information, accompanied with many specimens of submarine cables best suited for the contemplated line, with estimates, &c., upon which Mr. Gisborne proceeded to Constantinople, and obtained the neces sary firman from the Sultan to lay down the line now under consideration. Shortly after his return to this country, these concessions were placed at the disposal of a body of gentlemen, who formed themselves into a company (the Red Sea Telegraph Company), for the purpose of carrying out the lines under the con cessions obtained by Mr. Gisborne. In the month of August last, the directors called upon us to assist them with information, and, afterwards, to tender for the execution of the whole or one-lntlf the line, which we did, and a prospectus was issued, founded on this estimate ; but an insufficient amount of capital was subscribed, caused by certain statements appearing in the public newspapers, to the effect that it was im possible to lay a cable in the Red Sea, from its great depth, and other causes. “ In this state of tilings we suggested the propriety
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