'A Thread Across the Ocean'
The (Telegraph) Cable Guy 

MICHAEL PARFIT / NY Times 11aug02

[History of telegraph below article]

This is an oddly delightful and unsettling book. The delight is odd because it is evoked by calamity, misfortune, error and failure. The unsettling part is odd because it emerges from success.

''A Thread Across the Ocean'' is about an achievement that seems archaic in these Internet days: the laying of the first telegraph cables between Europe and North America, completed in 1866. But it's still apt. We have become so accustomed to the technology that supports our lives that we've forgotten how difficult that structure was to build. This book reminds us, excruciatingly, agonizingly, unforgettably.

Cyrus West Field
1819-1892

The hero of ''A Thread Across the Ocean'' is Cyrus Field, who made a fortune in the paper and print business by his early 30's and then found a bigger challenge. Field's determination was unbelievable, his perseverance magnificent. Here was a man who, though prone to seasickness, embarked on dozens of trans-Atlantic voyages to promote his idea; a man who believed in technology, was betrayed by it, but persisted. The challenges that faced Field and his partners, who included Samuel Morse and the physicist William Thomson -- who became famous as Lord Kelvin -- were huge. Telegraph wires were zipping out across the surface of the world, but they didn't have to be more than 2,000 continuous miles long, sunk up to more than two miles and laid in place by steam-augmented sailing ships, none of which could carry that much cable. No one had a good idea how to accomplish the job, including Field, who was simply excited about the notion.

''It was,'' John Steele Gordon writes, ''a bit as if someone in the 1950's, reading of the success of the Russian sputnik, had decided to organize a manned expedition to Mars.'' It's good the analogy stops there, or Field would have launched dozens of enthusiastic would-be astronauts into oblivion. Gordon's clean prose spares no gory detail. The disasters hit with such frequency and magnitude that they induce awe and eventually a kind of horror-movie thrill: Here comes the chain saw again!

Giving away the details would spoil the story. It's enough to say that they include vast coils of cable disappearing into the sea; brief moments of distraction that cost what today would be millions of dollars; storms that, if not perfect, were flawlessly timed to induce chaos; foolish adherence to old ideas; absurd failures of human communications; and repeated proof that arrogance is a sign of stupidity.

Often, work would start off with a celebration during which politicians would gush over what was about to be achieved: ''Does it seem, I say, all but a miracle of art,'' Edward Everett said, ''that the thoughts of living men . . . should clothe themselves with elemental sparks, and shoot with fiery speed . . . through the oozy dungeons of the rayless deep?'' This sort of thing would be followed by complete failure. One New York celebration didn't even wait for the project itself to go bad; fireworks set City Hall on fire.

The worst moment was a day in 1858, after an entire cable had finally been laid between Ireland and Newfoundland and had actually carried messages, leading to wild acclaim. Then, in the middle of a message, the new cable fizzled out, probably cooked when one of the team's electrical engineers tried to blast too much electricity through it. The acclaim turned to mockery.

Gordon, who writes a column on business for American Heritage magazine, explains the technology behind all this with relish and clarity. Even his footnotes are full of charming morsels. His note on the semihard characteristics of the rubberlike substance gutta-percha -- used to coat the cable -- observes that its slight denting when used for golf balls led to the discovery that dimpled balls flew better than smooth ones.

More germane, his description of an inquiry into the 1858 failure evokes the murky state of science at the time. Among other shortcomings, Gordon writes, there were no agreed-upon terms for the measurement of electricity, which was the foundation of the whole enterprise. In a way, the project's problems were also characteristic of the experimental nature of science and technology at that time, when so much was imperfectly understood.

For us, Field's disasters are as much fun as the ludicrous flying machines in the Smithsonian's classic Imax film ''To Fly.'' We enjoy them because we know that eventually everything comes out all right. But does it?

Gordon indulges in his one bit of philosophy after this triumph, citing Adam Smith's invisible hand of progress at work in Field's single-minded drive. But in another way Field's passion is less comforting than that. This is fundamentally a story about the fierce human drive to make tools. The Atlantic cable was made possible not just by Field's persistence but also by dozens of equally compelled toolmakers. Among them was Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who labored unto death to build the grandest ship of the century, the Great Eastern, which eventually laid the final cable across the Atlantic.

''A Thread Across the Ocean'' also shows how our longing for new tools is often invested with expectations that go far beyond the capacity of the inventions themselves. Here, sadly, we see the same kind of hopes that the Internet seemed to offer us so recently -- hopes so recently dashed. If cables connected the world, one editorialist wrote in 1857, they would ''make the great heart of humanity beat with a single pulse.'' ''Wars are to cease,'' another wrote. ''The kingdom of peace will be set up.''

But the kingdom of peace still eludes us. Expectations like these have given us the mistaken impression that technology has failed us, when technology has given more than we asked, and we, in a sense, have failed to live up to our tools. I suspect I know what Gordon would say about that pessimism. In a recent column on the Enron debacle, he wrote, ''Just as every cloud has a silver lining, so disasters always have a redeeming feature.'' ''A Thread Across the Ocean'' celebrates this indefatigable spirit, and there's nothing wrong with that. Everything never comes out all right, but as Cyrus Field knew, in spite of the most hopeless circumstances, some things do. That's what keeps us going.

Michael Parfit has written books on flight, Antarctica, nuclear weapons and coal. He is a regular contributor to National Geographic and Smithsonian magazines.

The Century of Science

The history of telegraphy could not be properly told without first describing the invention that planted its seed. The 1800s were described by author Bern Dibner as the Age of Science. Dibner identifies recent centuries with the following labels:

1400s - Century of Discovery (Gutenburg and Columbus) 1500s - Century of Exploration (Magellan and Copernicus) 1600s - Century of Reason (Galileo and Newton) 1700s - Century of Enlightenment (Diderot and Franklin) 1800s - Century of Science

On the eve of this century, the year 1800 to be exact, Alassandro Volta published a paper in the Transaction of the Royal Society of England describing the invention of the Voltaic pile or battery. This gave the increasing number of experiments on either side of the Atlantic a new instrument a source of constant flow electricity. By 1820, experiments had devised an electric arc that shone with extraordinary brilliance, water had been decomposed into oxygen and hydrogen and electroplating had been demonstrated. In 1820, Orsted had discovered that a magnetic field surrounded a wire carrying an electric current, thereby linking the two major phenomena of nature, electricity and magnetism the second ever-present effect of the first. The invention of the electromagnetic telegraph was demonstrated by Samuel Morse in 1837. This invention was as revolutionary as the printing press some 400 years earlier.

One of the First Great Electrical Inventions The Telegraph

The electric telegraph was one of the first important and large-scale practical applications of the new electrical force. It shrank the distances across continents to almost nothing, for it took no longer to transmit a message across a continent than it did across a street. The first electric telegraph line was constructed between Washington and Baltimore in 1844, and the highways of Europe and America were soon lined by poles and crossarms carrying wires through which the silent electric messages streamed in ever-increasing numbers.

Why a Transatlantic Cable?

As lines spread across the continents, the world's distances shrank in inverse proportion. It was inevitable that when these networks reached eastward along the Atlantic Seaboard across states and provinces, over mountains and under rivers, bays and straits, the eastern-most point of land in North America would eventually be reached. Similarly, moving westward the networks in Europe would stand paused at the Western Shore of Ireland. There then would remain the gap of nearly 2,000 miles of Atlantic Ocean, a challenge to the scientist and entrepreneur. Such a challenge did not remain long unheeded in the adventuresome days of the mid-1800s.

Meet Mr. Frederick N. Gisborne

Frederic Gisborne was the chief officer of the Nova Scotia Telegraph Company, and in 1851, he resigned to form the Newfoundland Electric Telegraph Company. His plan was to link Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. The plan involved an overland cable approximately 400 miles long connecting Cape Ray, Newfoundland, and Saint John's, Newfoundland, combined with a steamboat connection between Cape Ray and Cape Breton. He envisioned an eventual submarine cable across the Cabot Strait. Interestingly enough, the Carrier Pigeon was also to play a part in his plan.

In addition After covering only 30 40 miles of rugged Newfoundland terrain, Gisborne faced a significant crisis. One member of his party of six had died and the rest had nearly perished from starvation. In addition, his funds were basically cut off; he was sued and subsequently arrested under pressure from his creditors.

From Defeat Comes Ingenuity

Facing a company in bankruptcy and debts of some $50,000 owing to suppliers and the construction crew, Gisborne left Halifax and headed for New York in 1854. Having seen the success of the Dover/Calais line (from England to France) he abandoned his plan of steamboat/carrier pigeon and focused instead on laying a submarine cable.

While in New York Gisborne met Matthew D. Field, a civil engineer, who introduced him to his brother Cyrus W. Field (pictured at the left), a wealthy New York merchant. Cyrus W. Field had retired a year earlier, with a considerable fortune in reserve, and was not really inclined to become involved with such a large undertaking. However, there was something about Gisborne that sparked his interest and entrepreneurial spirit. After the initial meeting, Cyrus retired to his library and found himself observing his globe. Trying to visualize how this line could become a reality, he was struck by an idea, and what an idea it was. It would be of enormous advantage to extend this line across the Atlantic Ocean.

Could It Be Done?

Some ten years earlier Professor Morse stated that "a telegraphic communication line could certainly be established across the Atlantic Ocean." While considering the possibility of the cable, Field found a host of new questions that would have to be answered:

Could a cable of sufficient strength be built?

Could a signal be sent this vast distance under submarine conditions? There were also geological questions regarding the nature of the ocean bottom, the possibility of undersea tides and the possibility of undersea volcanic action.

To find answers to his questions, Cyrus Field wrote two letters immediately. The first was sent to Lieutenant Matthew F. Maury, lead of the National Observatory (Washington) and a prominent oceanographer. The second was sent to Professor Morse and they both responded punctually.

Lieutenant Maury

Maury reported that Lieutenant Commander O. H. Berryman had completed a series of soundings the previous year from Newfoundland to Ireland across the Atlantic Ocean. He also investigated winds and currents in the area. Anticipating the possibility of a submarine telegraph line, Lieutenant Berryman found that the ocean floor in the 1,600 miles between Newfoundland and Ireland was primarily a plateau deep enough to clear icebergs and ship anchors, yet shallow enough to make a submarine line feasible. Lieutenant Maury, in an almost poetic conclusion to his report stated, "I do not, however, pretend to consider the question as to the possibility of finding a time calm enough, the sea smooth enough, a wire long enough, or a ship big enough to lay a coil of wire sixteen hundred miles in length."

Professor Morse

Professor Morse showed an even deeper interest in the questions raised by Mr. Field and replied that he would come to visit New York in a few days. This he did, and what ensued was a harmonious and tremendously productive lifetime friendship. Professor Morse reiterated his report of ten years earlier that he was certain that 1,600 miles transmission of the signal was very possible.

And They're Off

Like a good race, thus began one of the great sagas in modern history, a venture which would touch the fields of science, politics, finance and geography. At this time Cyrus Field's eager and romantic vision did not foresee that what lay ahead was thirteen years and over forty trips across the Atlantic, which at that time took a considerable amount of time and was both hazardous and uncomfortable.

A syndicate was formed of ten capitalists who were invited by Cyrus Field to join the venture team. In a matter of a few weeks the New York, Newfoundland and London Telegraph Company was formed and initial financing put in place. The most important feature of this newly chartered company was its exclusive cable landing rights in Newfoundland and Labrador for the next fifty years. The new enterprise began to move into high gear.

Laying the Cable

To lay a transatlantic cable takes a tremendous team effort. Cyrus Field assembled for this endeavour a team of talented and wealthy individuals from the fields of commerce and science. Among the many influential people involved was Samuel Morse, who many of us know for the code that bears his name.

As with any new technology, laying this heavy, cumbersome cable was not a simple task. Two ships were involved in the initial undertaking. The Sarah L. Bryant, a wooden barque, had brought the cable to Newfoundland from England. It was to be towed by the steamer Adger. Samuel Morse and a group of the other principals, as well as journalists and members of the construction crew stood on the deck of the Adger on a clear, sunny summer day in 1855. After a brief ceremony in which Professor Morse described the operation of the telegraph instrument, the cable was anchored and the project set in motion.

Not surprisingly, the first enemy of the new cable was to be the maritime weather. The portion of water between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia is one of the roughest straits in the world. Approximately halfway across, the calm was broken by a heavy gale that pitched the boat violently. To save the Sarah L. Bryant, the captain ordered the cable cut. Thus 40 miles of cable were lost and the Adger returned to New York. In hindsight it was realized that a sail powered vessel was not suitable for laying cable. These vessels had no power of their own and had to be towed by other vessels making them somewhat unmanageable.

The first incident introduced some doubt in the minds of the directors of the company. However, a new cable was ordered and in the following year a cable was successfully laid. No cost estimate was found in our research for the lost 40 miles of cable, but one can be certain it was incredibly costly for the period. Perhaps even more difficult was the spanning of 400 miles of land lines. When finished in 1856, the telegraph network spanned nearly 1,000 miles from New York to Saint John's, Newfoundland. The total cost for the project was well over a million dollars.

Now the Big Challenge

With telegraph service to Newfoundland, the group was at the threshold of their biggest challenge. They now had to lay a cable that would be over 22 miles longer than their initial crossing. To confirm Berryman's notion that the floor of the Atlantic was flat plateau between the two continents, two more sounding studies were done. Lieutenant Maury named this area the Telegraphic Plateau. At its deepest point, about 200 miles off the coast of Ireland, the ocean was 14,000 feet deep and over 2½ miles wide.

The Atlantic Telegraph Company

A new company was formed to execute the Atlantic Cable project. It was called the Atlantic Telegraph Company. Its mission was to complete the work of the New York, Newfoundland, and London Company. The cost of the transatlantic cable was estimated to be about £350,000 pounds sterling. This capital was raised in a matter of a few weeks by Cyrus Field and his associates. Many of those adventuresome individuals came to the new company with engineering and electrical skills and gave the effort much more of an American-British balance.

What followed over the next twelve years was a series of heart breakers and triumphs that would dishearten even the most adventuresome scientist or entrepreneur. The cable business was new and there were no operating manuals or pre-set specifications to go by. In this business the cost of learning was millions of dollars, hundreds of miles of cable, political toil and struggle and even loss of life in some cases. Although other successful projects were being completed, there was not a great deal of communication in the area of technologies or strategies.

The Expedition of 1857

Two ships, the Niagara and the Agamemnon, were to carry and lay the cable. Each ship took on 1,300 miles of cable.

Two approaches were considered by the engineers for laying the cable. One approach would be to have the first ship fully pay out its load and then have the cable spliced to the end of the cable on the second. The second ship would then complete the job. The other approach involved having both ships meet at the midpoint of the ocean, splice their cables and then pay it out in both directions until the respective shores were reached.

On a fine August 5 morning the cable was connected to the Irish shore in a festive send-off. Only five miles were laid when the cable caught up in the ship's machinery and broke. This was quickly repaired and the mission continued. To ensure that the cable remained intact, signals were continuously broadcast over the line. After 10 days, disaster struck. A worried engineer, fearing the cable was paying out too fast, applied the brakes which grabbed solidly and broke the cable. Three hundred miles of cable was lost at sea.

Lesson #1: Anti-lock Brakes Would Be Needed!

The Expedition of 1858

After the failure of the 1857 expedition, Cyrus Field raised the capital to have a second attempt launched. Seven hundred miles of cable was ordered to replace the cable lost the previous year. Every detail of the laying procedure was reviewed and some revisions were to be made to the cable laying equipment. Anti-lock brakes were designed and installed and a new method of paying cables was instituted.

A poem was written on the 1857 Expedition.

Pay it out, Oh! Pay it out. As long as you are able; For if you put the darned brakes on Pop goes the cable.

For the second expedition, the trip strategy makers decided to listen to the engineers and lay the cable from the mid-ocean point out in both directions.

On this expedition a new and recently invented device was put in use. Professor Thompson had invented something called a mirror galvanometer. This came to be an essential part of cable laying.

The Mirror Galvanometer or Marine Galvanometer

This instrument consisted of a small but exceedingly light steel magnet to which a tiny reflecting mirror was attached. This assembly weighed no more than a grain and was suspended from its centre by a filament of silk. Around this was wound a coil of very thin insulated copper wire. When an electric current passed through the surrounding coil, the suspended magnet would move in proportion to the magnetic field built up by the current in the coil. A ray of light passing from a shaded lamp through a slat in a screen would be reflected from the mirror onto a graduated scale. Even a small charge would cause a pronounced movement on the scale. The marine galvanometer greatly improved the ability to receive messages. This instrument was capable of receiving 20 words per minute whereas previous devices could only receive two.

When assembled at mid-ocean floor for attempt number two, the cable ships once again parted ways. After only three miles the cable broke. Both ships returned and tried again. This time the ships were 80 miles apart before the cable broke again. Once again they met in the middle and started over. On their third attempt almost 200 miles of cable was successfully laid before the final defeat was felt. As before, defeat came in the form of a last signal over the cable identifying a break.

Finally a Triumph

After veering dangerously off course the crew of one of the ships made another discovery. A hull full of electrically charged cable was not good for a ship's compass; a pilot boat was thenceforth used to keep the cable ships on target.

On Thursday, August 5, 1858, the ship Niagara anchored at Newfoundland coast having laid 1,016 miles of cable. Just days later the cable was successfully landed in Ireland.

A Celebration of Worldly Proportions

The men who just weeks earlier were viewed as lunatics and failures were now embraced by the world as heroes. Nationalism soared as dignitaries honoured the company for making connection between these two great continents. When Cyrus Field reached New York with the other directors of the company, a celebration was staged that was comparable to the ending of the war. Unfortunately for the company, the new cable worked fine for about four weeks, then the line went dead, tossing into doubt once again the grand plan of Cyrus Field.

The Cable of 1865

Nearly six years after the last attempt had ended with the rupture of a cable, the 1865 expedition was put together. The Civil War was on in America so the company's efforts were under some time pressure. The actual cable to be laid was a significant improvement over previous cables and was put through a rigid battery of tests. This time, instead of fabricating a cable in pieces, the entire cable (2,700 miles) was made in one piece. Only the Great Eastern would be big enough to carry this enormous weight. The cable took eight months to complete. When finally loaded, the Great Eastern weighed 21,000 tons, as much as a whole fleet of ships or a small army.

At a point 73 miles from the Irish Coast, a malfunction occurred. For the first time, the cable was collected back onto the ship, repaired and once again payed out. A day or two later a similar fault occurred. Observation showed that, in both cases, an object had pierced the cable. The leaders of the expedition became suspicious that someone had attempted to sabotage the project and had a 24-hour security watch put on the cable tanks. It seemed that the same crew had been on duty when both mishaps occurred.

Disaster was never very far away, and with only 600 miles or so left to go, the cable fouled up and the end slipped into the sea. At a depth of two-and-a-half miles, the crew struggled for a few days to grapple the cable and bring it to the surface. After nine days and nights no alternative was left but to head for home to get the necessary equipment to rescue the cable.

The Cable of 1866

This time round, the principals and supporters of the initiative did not feel totally defeated. They were planning to salvage the cable and complete the circuit. Since political will and investor discouragement made each expedition progressively more difficult to finance, it was decided that a whole new company should be formed to raise the capital. The strategy for the mission would be to rescue the failed cable as well as stringing a parallel cable. This new venture was called The Anglo-American Telegraph Company.

On July 13, 1866, the Great Eastern, a magnificent ship of its day left Valencia, Ireland, paying out the cable all the way to Heart's Content, Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, landing the shore end on July 27.

Final Success

From Heart's Content, Cyrus Field sent the following message on July 27, 1866...

"We arrived here at nine o'clock this morning. All well. Thank God, the cable is laid, and is in perfect working order." The Great Eastern quickly returned to sea and on August 12 began grappling for the broken cable of 1865, 680 miles from Newfoundland. The cable was eventually lifted on September 1, spliced and cable was payed out until September 17, 1866. The cable was also landed at Heart's Content completing a second parallel circuit for the transatlantic cable. Many dreams were fulfilled with this momentous event.

source: The History of the Telegraph http://collections.ic.gc.ca/cable/ 11aug02