Atlantic Telegraph

[Lat. atlantic us; Gr. telos, far, distant, and graphein, to write.] The succe of various attempts to send me ages by electric agency through cables lying under water, for short distances, induced Profe or Morse, of New York, to suggest the po ibility of uniting Great Britain and America by a submarine cable, laid from shore to shore throughout the Atlantic ocean. In 1845, Mr. J. W. Brett registered an a ociation, under the name of the General Oceanic Telegraph Company, to carry out the object above mentioned, and to connect England with the continent of Europe in various parts. The latter part of his design was succe fully accomplished in 1851, and public attention, in Eng land, was, in consequence, again directed to the junction of Great Britain and America by similar means of intercommunication. Newfoundland had already been united to the main-land of America by a submarine cable; and, in 1856, the Atlantic Telegraph Company was formed, with the design of laying a cable between St. John's, Newfoundland, and Valentia, in Ireland, along the bot tom of the Atlantic in its shallowest part, which had been pointed out for the purpose by Captain Maury, and called by him the Telegraphic Plateau . Pecuniary as sistance was guaranteed to the company by the respective governments of Great Britain and the United States; and both powers agreed to furnish ships for taking out the cable and placing it in its destined bed. After differ ent attempts made to accomplish this great object, which all terminated without practical result, the cable was at last succe fully laid, when, on the 5th of August, 1865, it broke, about 88 m. from Heart's Content, in Newfoundland. Nothing daunted, the operators in this mighty scheme again set to work for the fourth time, and on the 28th July, 1866, the telegraphic junction was at last succe fully achieved, and came into practical busine use, as it has since remained. In addition, the last expedition recovered the lost cable of 1865, which has also since been brought into active operation. The wires in the U. States having been joined up for experiment from Heart's Content to California, a me age was sent from Valentia, (Ireland,) at 7:21 A. M., Feb. 1, 1868, and the acknowledgment of its receipt was received in Valentia, at 7-23; the whole operation having occupied two minutes. The distance travelled was about 14,000 miles; and the me age arrived, according to San Francisco time, at 11-20 P. M. on Jan. 31, or the day preceding that on which it left England. A reduced tariff of rates was i ued by the company, Sept. 1, 1868. - The accompanying figure, in which the succe ive gradations in size represent the materials of which they are composed, gives a fair idea of a deepsea cable. The upper and smaller end is the annealed steel wire centre, and the next gradation shows the small copper wires spirally laid around it, forming & conductor of great strength and conductivity. This is insulated with pure gutta perch a, nine-sixteenths of an inch in diameter, laid on in three succe ive coatings, so as to insure perfect insulation. The core thus made is subjected to a test by a very sensitive galvanometer, so that there may be no doubt of its perfection. Then, to protect the covering of gutta-perch a, a coating of Manilla yarn, Fig . 228.-DEEP-SEA CABLE. short spiral lay, is put on, and over this a second of Manilla yarn long spiral lay, is laid on in the reverse direction. The annealed steel wire weighs 330 pounds per mile; the copper wires, 475; the gutta-perch a insulation, 475; and the outside protection, 750 pounds. The total of 1 m. of cable was 2,030- pounds. In later cables the weight of the wire employed has been considerably increased, though the method of manufacture is practically the same. It may further be said that the laying of the first cable was almost wholly due to the persistent endeavors of Cyrus W. Field, to whose labors were due the laying of the unsucce ful cable of 1858 and the succe ful one in 1866, Since the latter date a number of other lines have been laid, the first being a French line, laid in 1869, from Brest to the Island of St. Pierre, south of Newfoundland. In 1873 a line was laid from Lisbon to Pernambuco, in South America, by means of which Europe and this country were brought into direct communication with that continent. In 1874 and 1875 two other cables were laid from Valentia to Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, the latter weighing only 880 pounds per mile. A line was laid from Penzance to St. Pierre in 1879, one from England to Panama in 1882, and in 1884 the Bennett and Mackay line was laid from Valentia to Torbay in Nova Scotia. Up to the present date 12 lines of tele graph cable have been laid between Europe and this country, with a total length of over 27,000 miles, while under the seas of the whole world there are no le than 310 cables, with a total length of 139,754 miles. This total includes all those along the shores, and ir the bays, gulfs and estuaries of rivers, but not those in lakes and interior water courses. The rates for me ages over the first line was $100 for 20 words of 5 letters each, and $5 for every 5 letters extra. These rates were reduced one-half the next year, and have since been greatly cut down. The rate for a word of 10 letters from New York to England, France and Germany is now 25 cents, and to other countries at a proportionate increase. See TELEGRAPH. At lant is, (THE NEW,) the title of an allegorical fiction by Lord Bacon, and the name of an island described therein as being placed, like the At lant is of early writers, in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. Atlas. ( Myth .) One of the Titans, son of Iapetus and Clymene. Jupiter, the conqueror of the Titans, condemned him to bear the vault of heaven; which fable arose from his lofty stature. By Pleione, the daughter of Ocean us, he had seven daughters, who, under the name of Pleiades or At lan tides , shone in the heavens Atlas (Mount), an extensive and lofty chain of mountains in N. W. Africa, extending through the greater part of Barbary, from Tunis to Morocco; and dividing the latter countries, and Algeria, from the great southern desert of Sahara. The mountains which form the E. boundary of the empire of Morocco are the highest of the chain, one of them rising to an elevation of 11,000 ft. above the sea. Our knowledge of the roads traversing this mountain-system is very scanty. It is believed that only two pa es, Bebawan and Belavin, exist between the province of Suse and the country N. of the A. Farther E., between 5o and 4° W. Lon., lies the great caravan route, by which the commerce between Fez in Morocco, and Timbuctoo, in Soudan, is carried on. It traverses the districts of Tafilet and Drah, and connects with the great caravan road to Mecca. Copper, iron, lead, antimony, saltpetre, and rock-salt, are among the mineral productions of A. The inhabitants are called Berbers (7. v.).-A. gave its name to the Atlantic ocean. IMG:content-0387.jpg:[graphic]