The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865

V >> Various >> The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865

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A line from Calcutta to Canton is already undertaken by an English
company, with due authority from the British Government.

In Australia there are now in operation twelve thousand miles of
telegraph-wire. This Australian system, which is at present so purely
local and isolated, is nevertheless expected to be brought into
combination, by alternating submarine and island wires, with the Chinese
and Russian line above described.

The statistics of the telegraph-lines in Great Britain show not only an
increase in the number of lines, but a great augmentation in the amount
of business transacted. In 1861 there were 11,528 miles of line open for
public use; in 1862, 12,711 miles; and in 1863, 13,892 miles, comprising
65,012 miles of wire. Last year, the number of stations was augmented in
like proportion; and facilities were offered for the transmission of
telegraphic dispatches at no fewer than 1,755 stations, containing 6,196
instruments, through which about 3,400,000 telegrams were sent. In
addition to the lines on British soil, the Submarine Telegraph Company
has cables stretching to Calais, Boulogne, Dieppe, Jersey, Ostend,
Hanover, and Denmark, with which the other lines are more or less in
connection, covering 887 miles with 2,683 miles of wire. This company
has upwards of 3,000 stations on the Continent. The messages sent by it
to and from foreign countries were, in 1861, 230,000; in 1862, 310,595;
and in 1863, 345,784.

France possesses a system comprising 71,034 miles of wire and 1,301
stations, which transmit about 1,500,000 private dispatches annually,
and nearly 175,000 official ones. Russia has 36,663 miles of wire;
Austria, 22,230; Italy, 20,120; Prussia, 24,149; Spain, 17,743; Belgium,
3,773; Switzerland, 3,720; Turkey, 6,571; Persia, 2,500; Greece, 3,000;
India, 10,994, and 136 stations; Australia, 12,000; South Australia,
2,000; the United States, 120,000; the British Provinces in America,
20,000;--making a total of upwards of 440,000 miles of aerial wire in
operation in all parts of the world.

* * * * *

The following tables give the details of the principal cables hitherto
laid by all makers. They are divided into three heads: 1st, Those which
have been wholly successful, and are now working (September, 1865); 2d,
Those which were partially successful, having worked for a time; 3d,
Those which wholly failed, or never worked after their submergence.

TABLE I.

_Submarine Telegraph Cables which are now in Successful Working Order._

Column A: No.
Column B: Date when laid.
Column C: From
Column D: To
Column E: Number of conducting wires.
Column F: Length of cable in statute miles.
Column G: Length of insulated wire in statute miles.
Column H: Maximum depth of water in fathoms.
Column I: Weight in tons per statute mile.
Column J: Length of time the cables have worked. Years.

A B C D E F G H I J

1 1851 Dover Calais 4 27 108 30 6.00 14
2 1852 Keyhaven Hurst Castle 4 3 12 .. .. 13
3 1853 Denmark Across the Belt 3 18 54 15 4.00 12
4 1853 Dover Ostend 6 80-1/2 483 30 5.75 12
5 1853 Firth of Forth ... 4 5 20 .. 7.00 12
6 1853 England Holland 1 120 120 30 1.75 12
7 1853 Portpatrick Donaghadee 6 25 150 160 6.00 12
8 1854 Portpatrick Whitehead 6 27 162 150 6.00 11
9 1854 Sweden Denmark 3 12 36 14 6.00 11
10 1854 Italy Corsica 6 120 660 325 8.00 11
11 1854 Corsica Sardinia 6 10 60 20 8.00 11
12 1855 Egypt ... 4 10 40 .. 6.00 10
13 1855 Italy Sicily 1 5 5 27 6.00 10
14 1856 Prince Edward Cape Breton 1 12 12 14 2.50 9
Island
15 1857 Norway across ... 1 49 49 300 2.75 8
Fiords
16 1857 Across mouth of ... 1 3 3 .. 1.75 8
Danube
17 1857 Ceylon India 1 60 60 45 2.75 8
18 1858 Italy Sicily 1 8 8 60 5.25 7
19 1858 England Holland 4 140 560 30 9.75 7
20 1858 England Hanover 2 280 560 30 3.00 7
21 1858 Norway across ... 1 16 16 300 2.75 7
Fiords
22 1858 Dardanelles Scio 1 115 115 200 1.00 7
23 1858 Scio Syra 1 85 85 200 1.00 7
24 1859 Alexandria ... 4 2 8 .. 5.25 6
25 1859 England Denmark 3 360 1,104 30 4.00 6
26 1859 Scio Smyrna 1 40 40 40 1.00 6
27 1859 Syra Athens 1 105 105 150 1.00 6
28 1859 Sweden Gottland 1 64 64 80 2.50 6
29 1859 Folkestone Boulogne 6 24 144 32 9.50 6
30 1859 Across rivers ... 1 10 10 .. 4.50 6
in India
31 1859 Otranto Avlona 1 50 50 400 1.00 6
32 1859 Malta Sicily 1 60 60 79 3.25 6
33 1859 Jersey Pirou in France 1 21 21 15 3.75 6
34 1859 South Australia Tasmania 1 140 140 60 2.00 6
35 1860 France Algiers 1 520 520 1,585 1.14 5
36 1860 Denmark (Great Belt) 6 14 84 18 8.00 5
37 1860 Denmark (Great Belt) 3 14 42 18 6.00 5
38 1860 In Arracan ... 1 116 116 50 1.00 5
39 1860 Barcelona Port Mahon 1 198 198 1,400 1.25 5
40 1860 Minorca Majorca 2 35 70 250 2.00 5
41 1860 Iviza Majorca 2 74 148 500 2.00 5
42 1860 San Antonio Iviza 2 76 152 450 2.00 5
43 1861 Corfu Otranto 1 90 90 1,000 2.75 4
44 1861 Norway across ... 1 16 16 300 2.75 4
Fiords
45 1861 Toulon Corsica 1 195 195 1,550 1.14 4
46 1861 Malta Alexandria 1 1,535 1,535 420 1.85 4
47 1861 Beachy Head Dieppe 6 80 320 30 8.00 4
48 1862 Abermawr Grenore 4 63 252 58 5.25 3
49 1862 England Holland 4 130 520 30 9.00 3
50 1862 Across rivers ... 1 2 2 .. .. 3
in Ireland
51 1862 Firth of Forth ... 4 6 24 7 .. 3
52 1862 Fortress Monroe Cherrystone 1 23 23 .. .. 3
53 1862 Fortress Monroe Newport News 1 3 3 .. .. 3
54 1863 Sardinia Sicily 1 243 243 1,200 .. 2
55 1864 Gwadur Fao 1 1,450 1,450 .. .. 1
(Persian Gulf)
_____ ______
6,979 11,127

In addition to the above, there have been laid across American rivers,
since 1854, 95 lines, in lengths of from 120 feet to two miles, and
comprising from 120 feet to 6 miles of insulated wire each,--making an
aggregate of 250 miles of subaqueous wire in operation on this
continent, and a total of 6,979 miles of cable, and 11,127 miles of
submarine wire in operation in all parts of the world.

TABLE II.

_Submarine Telegraph Cables which have been successful for some Time,
but are not now working._

Column A: No.
Column B: Date when laid.
Column C: From
Column D: To
Column E: Number of conducting wires.
Column F: Length of cable in statute miles.
Column G: Length insulated wire in statute miles.
Column H: Maximum depth of water in fathoms.
Column I: Weight in tons per statute mile.
Column J: Length of time the cables have worked.

A B C D E F G H I J

1 1850 Dover Calais 1 25 25 30 .. 1 day.
2 1853 England Holland 1 360 360 30 2.00 5 yrs.
(Three Cables)
3 1854 Holyhead Howth 1 75 75 70 2.00 5 "
4 1854 Nantucket Cape Cod 1 25 25 16 .. ....
5 1855 Varna Balaklava 1 355 355 300 0.10 9 mos.
6 1855 Balaklava Eupatoria 1 1 1 .. .. 9 "
7 1856 Martha's Vineyard Cape Cod 1 5 5 15 .. 2 wks.
8 1856 Newfoundland Cape Breton 1 85 85 360 2.50 9 yrs.
9 1857 Sardinia Bona 4 150 600 1,500 .. 3 "
10 1857 Varna Constantinople 1 170 170 .. 0.75 5 "
11 1857 Cape Cod Naushon 1 1 .. .. .. 2 "
12 1857 Martha's Vineyard Nantucket 1 30 30 16 .. 4 "
13 1857 Sardinia Corfu 1 700 700 1,000 0.90 1 "
14 1858 England Channel Islands 1 102 102 60 2.50 3 "
15 1858 Ireland(Atlantic) Newfoundland 1 2,500 2,500 2,400 1.00 23 ds.
16 1859 Singapore Batavia 1 630 630 20 0.04 2 yrs.
17 1859 Suez Kurrachee 1 3,500 3,500 1,910 0.94 6 mos.
(Red Sea & India)
18 1859 Spain Africa (Centa) 1 25 25 .. 1.00 1 yr.
19 1859 England Isle of Man 1 36 36 30 2.50 3 yrs.
20 1859 South Australia Tasmania 1 100 100 60 2.00 1 yr.
21 1859 Liverpool Holyhead 2 25 50 14 3.10 1 "
22 1859 Syra Candia 1 150 150 .. 0.89 3 yrs.
23 1860 Across the Mersey .. 1 3 3 .. .. 1 yr.
_____ _____
9,053 9,527

TABLE III.

_Submarine Telegraph Cables Which Are Total Failures._

Column A: No.
Column B: Date when laid.
Column C: From
Column D: To
Column E: Number of conducting wires.
Column F: Length of cable in statute miles.
Column G: Length of insulated wire in statute miles.
Column H: Maximum depth of water in fathoms.
Column I: Weight in tons per statute mile.

A B C D E F G H I

1 1852 Holyhead Howth 1 75 75 70 0.45
2 1852 Portpatrick Donaghadee 2 17 34 160 ..
3 1852 Portpatrick Donaghadee 5 15 75 160 4.80
4 1854 Holyhead Howth 1 65 65 70 2.00
5 1855 Sardinia Africa 6 50 300 800 8.00
6 1855 Cape Ray Cape North 3 30 90 360 ..
7 1855 Sardinia Africa 3 160 480 1,500 3.70
8 1857 Ireland Newfoundland 1 300 300 2,400 ..
(Lost in laying)
9 1859 Candia Alexandria 1 150 150 1,600 0.89
10 1865 Ireland Newfoundland 1 1,300 1,300 2,400 1.75

It will be seen from the above list of failures, that the great
extension and success of submarine cables has been attained through many
great failure,--among the most prominent being the old and new Atlantic,
the Red Sea and India, (which was laid in five sections, that worked
from six to nine months each, but was never in working order from end to
end,) the Singapore and Batavia, and Sardinia and Corfu. None of these
cable, with the exception of the new Atlantic, were tested under water
after manufacture, and every one of them was covered with a sheathing of
light iron wire, weighing in the aggregate only about fifteen hundred
pounds per mile.

These two peculiarities are sufficient to account for every failure
which has occurred, with the exception of the new Atlantic. No
electrical test will show the presence of flaws in the insulating cover
of a wire, unless water, or some other conductor, enters the flaws and
establishes an electrical connection between the outside and inside of
the cable. All cables now manufactured are tested under water before
being laid.

* * * * *

Communication between the Ottoman capital and Western Europe passes
through Vienna. From this city to Constantinople there are two distinct
lines,--one passing by Semlin and Belgrade to Adrianople, the other by
Toultcha, Kustendji, and Varna. There is a third line to Adrianople by
Bucharest; and by the opening of the submarine line between Avlona and
Otranto, in Italy, the Turkish telegraph service will be in direct
communication with the West, without going through Servia or the
Moldo-Wallachian Principalities.

Communication between Constantinople and India is maintained over the
following route:--To Ismid, 55 miles; thence to Mudurli, 104 miles;
thence to Angora, 111 miles; thence to Guzgat, 113 miles; thence to
Sivas, 140 miles; Kharpoot, 178 miles; Diarbekir, 77 miles; Mardeen, 61
miles; Djezireh, 104 miles; Mosul, (Nineveh,) 91 miles; Kerkook, 114
miles; Bagdad, 189 miles. From Bagdad to Fao, at the mouth of the
Shat-el-Arab, on the Persian Gulf, is 400 miles. From Fao to Kurrachee
the submarine cable stretches along the bottom of the Persian Gulf for
1,450 miles; and thence are 500 miles of aerial line across a portion of
British India to Bombay.

The accounts of the successful opening of this line tell of the
astonishment of the savage Beloochees and Arabs along the Mekran coast
at the marvel of a blue spark flashing for the Sahib to the Indus and
back again in less time than it takes to smoke a hookah. At Gwadur, no
sooner was the cable landed than the people of the surrounding country
flocked down to hear and talk of the Feringhee witchcraft. Chiefs of the
Beloochees, Muscatees, and Heratees, with their retainers, trod upon
each other's toes in their eagerness to see it work. Gwadur has given up
the idea that Mahomet taught everything that could be known, and now
sits upon the carpet of astonishment and chews the betel-nut of
meditation.

The establishment of the electric telegraph in India presented some
curious as well as difficult problems. In the first place, it was
discovered that the air of India is in a state of constant electrical
perturbation of the strongest kind, so that the instruments there
mounted went into a high fever and refused to work. Along the north and
south lines a current of electricity was constantly passing, which threw
the needles out of gear and baffled the signallers. Moreover, the
tremendous thunder-storms ran up and down the wires and melted the
conductors; the monsoon winds tore the teak-posts out of the sodden
ground; the elephants and buffaloes trampled the fallen lines into kinks
and tangles; the Delta aborigines carried off the timber supports for
fuel, and the wires or iron rods upon them to make bracelets and to
supply the Hindoo smitheries; the cotton- and rice-boats, kedging up and
down the river, dragged the subaqueous wires to the surface. In addition
to these graver difficulties were many of an amusing character. Wild
pigs and tigers scratched their skins against the posts in the jungle,
and porcupines and bandicoots burrowed them out of the ground. Kites,
fishing-eagles, and hooded-crows came in hundreds and perched upon the
line to see what on earth it could mean, and sometimes after a
thunder-storm, when the wires were wet, were found dead by dozens, the
victims of their curiosity, Monkeys climbed the posts and ran along the
lines, chattering, and dropping an interfering tail from one wire to
another, which tended to confound the conversations of Calcutta.
Parrots, with the same contempt for electrical insulation, fastened upon
one string by the beak and another by the leg; and in one village, the
complacent natives hung their fishing-lines to dry upon them.

In 1856 there were four thousand miles of telegraph-wire stretched over
India: some upon bamboo posts, which bent to the storms and thus defied
them; some, as in the Madras Presidency, upon monoliths of
granite,--these, during the Mutiny, proving worth ten times their cost.

* * * * *

Whilst the telegraph has been thus rapidly encircling the globe with its
iron threads, great improvement has been made in the apparatus for
transmitting the electrical signals over them. Instruments called
translators, or repeaters, have been devised, by which aerial lines may
be operated, without repetition, over distances of many thousands of
miles. Through the use of this valuable invention upon the California
line, operators in New York and San Francisco are able to converse as
readily and rapidly as those situated at the extremities of a line only
a hundred miles in length.

The enormous increase in the amount of matter to be transmitted over the
wires has stimulated the inventive genius of our own country and Europe
to produce an apparatus by which the capacity of a wire may be greatly
increased. Mr. M. G. Farmer of Boston, Mr. J. G. Smith of Portland,
Maine, Dr. Gintl of Germany, and one or two other persons, have solved
the problem of the simultaneous transmission of messages over a single
wire in opposite directions. But while their apparatus, with the proper
arrangement of batteries, will unquestionably permit the accomplishment
of this apparent paradox, the natural disturbances upon a wire of any
considerable length, together with the inequalities of the current
caused by escape in wet weather, have precluded its practical use.

In this country, General Lefferts of New York, and in Europe, Professor
Bonelli, have devoted much time and expense to the perfection of
apparatus for securing greater rapidity of transmission over the aerial
lines.

General Lefferts owns several patents covering inventions of great
ingenuity and value, which are now being perfected and will shortly be
brought into operation. The apparatus consists of an instrument,
operated by keys similar to those of a piano-forte, for punching
characters, composed of dots and lines, upon a narrow strip of paper.
The paper, when thus prepared, is passed rapidly through an instrument
attached to a telegraph-wire, at the other end of which is a similar
instrument which runs in unison. The first instrument is provided with a
flexible metallic comb, which presses through the perforations in the
paper and thus closes the circuit at each dot and line, while the second
instrument is provided with a metallic stylus, or pointer, which rests
upon a fillet of paper prepared with chemicals, and produces, whenever
the circuit is closed, dots and lines of a dark blue color upon the
prepared paper. When the paper is prepared by the perforating apparatus,
it can be run through the instrument at any rate of speed that is
desirable, and it is estimated that with this apparatus one wire may
easily perform as much work in a day as ten can under the ordinary
arrangement.

In Professor Bonelli's system the dispatch is set up in printing-type,
and placed on a little carriage, which is made to pass beneath a comb
with five teeth, which are in communication with five aerial wires of
the line, at the extremity of which these same wires are joined to the
five teeth of a second comb, under which passes a chemically prepared
paper, carried along on a little carriage similar to the one at the
other end on which the printing-type is placed. If under this
arrangement the electric circuit of a battery composed of a sufficient
number of elements, and distributed in a certain order, be completed,
then, at the same time that the first comb is passing over the
printing-type at the one end, the second comb at the other end will
trace the dispatch on the prepared paper in beautiful Roman letters, and
with so great a rapidity that it may be expected that five hundred
messages of twenty words each will be transmitted hourly.

On Wednesday, April 19th, the day of Mr. Lincoln's funeral, eighty-five
thousand words of reports were transmitted between Washington and New
York, between the hours of 7, P. M., and 1, A. M., being at the rate of
over fourteen thousand words per hour. Nine wires were employed for the
purpose. Thirteen thousand six hundred words were transmitted by the
House printing instruments on a single wire after half past seven
o'clock.

A telegraphic message was recently received in London from India in
eight hours and a half. This message was forwarded by the Indo-European
Telegraph Company, _via_ Kurrachee and the Persian Gulf, crossing one
half of Asia and the whole of Europe.

During the late Rebellion in this country the telegraph was extensively
employed both by the Government and the Insurgents. In the course of the
past year, there have been in the service of the Government thirty
field-trains, distributed as follows:--In the Army of the Potomac, five;
in the Department of the Cumberland, five; in the Department of the
Gulf, three; in the Department of North Carolina and Virginia, three; in
the Department of the South, two; in the Department of the Tennessee,
six; in the Department of the Ohio, two; at the Signal Camp of
Instruction, Georgetown, D. C., three; at the United States Military
Academy, West Point, New York, one. Of these trains, some were equipped
with five, and others with ten miles of insulated wire. There were
carried in the trains lances for setting up the wire, when
necessary,--reels, portable by hand, carrying wire made purposely
flexible for this particular use,--and various minor appliances, which
experience has proved useful. A military organization was directed for
each train.

In duty of this kind, the construction of the trains, the equipment to
be carried by them, and the military organization to be provided for
their use, to enable them to be most rapidly and anywhere brought into
action, are the subjects for study: the particular instrument to be
equipped is a secondary consideration. The soldiers drilled to the duty
of construction acquire in a short time a remarkable skill in the rapid
extension of these lines. As was anticipated, they have proved valuable
auxiliaries to the services of the corps, and have sometimes rendered
them available when they would have been otherwise useless. The greatest
distance at which the instruments are reported to have worked is twenty
miles. The average distances at which they are used are from five to
eight miles. The average speed of the most rapid construction is
reported to be at the rate of a slow walk.

At the first Battle of Fredericksburg field-trains were for the first
time in the history of the war used on the battle-field, under the fire
of the enemy's batteries. The movements to be made on the day of that
battle were of the first magnitude. The movements of the retreat were
perilous to the whole army. The trains in use contributed something to
the success of those movements.

Many incidents are recorded of operators accompanying raiding parties
into the enemy's territory and tapping the telegraph-lines, sometimes
obtaining valuable information. One is related by the "Selma Rebel." The
operator at that place was called to his instrument by some one up the
Tennessee and Alabama Road, who desired information as to the number of
the forces and supplies at Coosa Bridge. After getting all the
information he could, regarding the location and strength of the Rebel
forces, he informed the Selma operator that he was attached to the
expedition under General Wilson, and that, at that particular time, he
was stationed with his instruments up a tree near Monticello, in the
hardest rain he ever saw! Permission being given, he sent a dispatch to
a young lady in Mobile, and another to a telegraph-operator in the Rebel
lines, telling him he loved him as much as before the war. After some
other conversation, the Yankee operator clambered down from the tree,
mounted his horse, and rode away.

FOOTNOTES:

[E] The Chinese Government has been informed by the Russian Ambassador
that the Russian portion of this line to Pekin will be completed by the
first of January, 1868.

THE FIELD OF GETTYSBURG.

In the month of August, 1865, I set out to visit some of the scenes of
the great conflict through which the country has lately passed.

On the twelfth, I reached Harrisburg,--a plain, prosaic town of brick
and wood, with nothing especially attractive about it, except its
broad-sheeted, shining river, flowing down from the Blue Ridge, around
wooded islands, and between pleasant shores.

It is in this region that the traveller from the North first meets with
indications of recent actual war. The Susquehanna, on the eastern shore
of which the city stands, forms the northern limit of Rebel military
operations. The "highwater mark of the Rebellion" is here: along these
banks its uttermost ripples died. The bluffs opposite the town are still
crested with the hastily constructed breastworks, on which the citizens
worked night and day in the pleasant month of June, 1863, throwing up,
as it were, a dike against the tide of invasion. These defences were of
no practical value. They were unfinished when the Rebels appeared in
force in the vicinity. Harrisburg might easily have been taken, and a
way opened into the heart of the North. But a Power greater than man's
ruled the event. The Power that lifted these azure hills, and spread out
the green valleys, and hollowed a passage for the stream, appointed to
treason also a limit and a term. "Thus far, and no farther."

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