The Battery and the Boiler: Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables

“Well, wee; I go for fun.”

They went accordingly and bore away to the northward along the coast before a light breeze,—past the ruined towers which France had built to guard her port in days gone by; past the steep cliffs beyond Boulogne; past the lovely beach of Wimereux, with its cottages nestled among the sand-hills, and its silted-up harbour, whence Napoleon the First had intended to issue forth and descend on perfidious Albion—but didn’t; past cliffs, and bays, and villages further on, until they brought up off Cape Grisnez. Here the Frenchman let down his trawl, and fished up, among other curiosities of the deep, the submarine cable!

“Behold! fat is dis?” he exclaimed, with glaring eyes, uplifted brows, shoulders shrugged, hands spread out, and fingers expanded.

“The sea-sarpint grow’d thin,” suggested the Englishman.

“Non; c’est seaveed—veed de most ’strordinair in de vorld. Oui, donnez-moi de hache, de hax, mon ami.”

His friend handed him the axe, wherewith lie cut off a small portion of the cable and let the end go. Little did that fisherman know that he had also let our Spark go free, and cruelly dashed, for a time at least, the budding hopes of two nations—but so it was. He bore his prize in triumph to Boulogne, where he exhibited it as a specimen of rare seaweed with its centre filled with gold, while the telegraph clerks at both ends sat gazing in dismay at their useless instruments.

Thus was the first submarine electric cable destroyed. And with the details of its destruction little Robin was intimately acquainted, for cousin Sam had been a member of the staff that had worked that telegraph—at least he had been a boy in the office,—and in after years he so filled his cousin’s mind with the importance of that cable, and the grandeur and difficulty of the enterprise, that Robin became powerfully sympathetic—so much so that when Sam, in telling the story, came to the point where the Frenchman accomplished its destruction, Robin used to grieve over it as though he had lost a brother, or a kitten, or his latest toy!

We need scarcely add that submarine cable telegraphy had not received its death-blow on that occasion. Its possibility had been demonstrated. The very next year (1851) Mr T.R. Crampton, with Messrs Wollaston, Küper, and others, made and laid an improved cable between Dover and Calais, and ere long many other parts of the world were connected by means of snaky submarine electric cables.

Chapter Three.

Early Aspirations

One pleasant summer afternoon, Mr Wright, coming in from the office, seated himself beside his composed little wife, who was patching a pair of miniature pantaloons.

“Nan,” said the husband, with a perplexed look, “what are we to do with our Robin when he grows up?”

“George,” answered the composed wife, “don’t you think it is rather soon to trouble ourselves with that question? Robin is a mere child yet. We must first give him a good education.”

“Of course, I know that,” returned the perplexed husband, “still, I can’t help thinking about what is to be done after he has had the good education. You know I have no relation in the world except brother Richard, who is as poor as myself. We have no influential friends to help him into the Army or the Navy or the Indian Civil Service; and the Church, you know, is not suitable for an imp. Just look at him now!”

Mrs Wright looked through the window, over one of those sunny landscapes which are usually described as “smiling,” across a winding rivulet, and at last fixed her gorgeous eyes on a tall post, up which a small black object was seen to be struggling.

“What can he be up to?” said the father.

“He seems to be up the telegraph-post,” said the mother, “investigating the wires, no doubt. I heard him talking about telegraphy to Madge this morning—retailing what cousin Sam tries to teach him,—and I shouldn’t wonder if he were now endeavouring to make sure that what he told her was correct, for you know he is a thorough investigator.”

“Yes, I know it,” murmured the father, with a grim pursing of his lips; “he investigated the inside of my watch last week, to find out, as he said, what made the noise in its ‘stummick,’ and it has had intermittent fever ever since. Two days ago he investigated my razor,—it is now equal to a cross-cut saw; and as to my drawers and papers, excepting those which I lock up, there is but one word which fully describes the result of his investigations, and that is—chaos.”

There was, in truth, some ground for that father’s emotions, for Master Robin displayed investigative, not to say destructive, capacities far in advance of his years.

“Never mind, George,” said Mrs Wright soothingly, “we must put up with his little ways as best we may, consoling ourselves with the reflection that Robin has genius and perseverance, with which qualities he is sure to make his way in the world.”

“He has at all events made his way up the telegraph-post,” said Mr Wright, his smile expanding and the grimness of it departing; “see! the rascal is actually stretching out his hand to grasp one of the wires. Ha! hallo!”

The composed wife became suddenly discomposed, and gave vent to a scream, for at that moment the small black object which they had been watching with so much interest was seen to fall backward, make a wild grasp at nothing with both hands, and fall promptly to the ground.

His father threw up the window, leaped out, dashed across the four-feet-wide lawn, cleared the winding rivulet, and cut, like a hunted hare, over the smiling landscape towards the telegraph-post, at the foot of which he picked up his unconscious though not much injured son.

“What made you climb the post, Robin?” asked his cousin Madge that evening as she nursed the adventurous boy on her knee—and Madge was a very motherly nurse, although a full year younger than Robin.

“I kimed it to see if I could hear the ’trissity,” replied the injured one.

“The lek-trissity,” said Madge, correcting. “You must learn to p’onounce your words popperly, dear. You’ll never be a great man if you are so careless.”

“I don’t want to be a g’eat man,” retorted Robin. “I on’y want t’understand things whats puzzlesum.”

“Well, does the telegraph puzzle you?”

“Oh! mos’ awfully,” returned Robin, with a solemn gaze of his earnest eyes, one of which was rendered fantastic by a yellow-green ring round it and a swelling underneath. “I’s kite sure I’s stood for hours beside dat post listin’ to it hummin’ an hummin’ like our olianarp—”

“Now, Robin, do be careful. You know mamma calls it an olian harp.”

“Yes, well, like our olian harp, only a deal louder, an’ far nicer. An’ I’s often said to myself, Is that the ’trissity—?”

“Lek, Robin, lek!”

“Well, yes, lek-trissity. So I thought I’d kime up an’ see, for, you know, papa says the ’trissity—lek, I mean—runs along the wires—”

“But papa also says,” interrupted Madge, “that the sounds you want to know about are made by the vi— the vi—”

“Bratin’,” suggested the invalid.

“Yes, vibratin’ of the wires.”

“I wonder what vi-bratin’ means,” murmured Robin, turning his lustrous though damaged eyes meditatively on the landscape.

“Don’no for sure,” said Madge, “but I think it means tremblin’.”

It will be seen from the above conversation that Robert Wright and his precocious cousin Marjory were of a decidedly philosophical turn of mind.

Chapter Four.

Extraordinary Result of an Attempt at Amateur Cable-Laying

Time continued to roll additional years off his reel, and rolled out Robin and Madge in length and breadth, though we cannot say much for thickness. Time also developed their minds, and Robin gradually began to understand a little more of the nature of that subtle fluid—if we may venture so to call it—under the influence of which he had been born.

“Come, Madge,” he said one day, throwing on his cap, “let us go and play at cables.”

Madge, ever ready to play at anything, put on her sun-bonnet and followed her ambitious leader.

“Is it to be land-telegraphs to-day, or submarine cables?” inquired Madge, with as much gravity and earnestness as if the world’s welfare depended on the decision.

“Cables, of course,” answered Robin, “why, Madge, I have done with land-telegraphs now. There’s nothing more to learn about them. Cousin Sam has put me up to everything, you know. Besides, there’s no mystery about land-lines. Why, you’ve only got to stick up a lot o’ posts with insulators screwed to ’em, fix wires to the insulators, clap on an electric battery and a telegraph instrument, and fire away.”

“Robin, what are insulators?” asked Madge, with a puzzled look.

“Madge,” replied Robin, with a self-satisfied expression on his pert face, “this is the three-hundred-thousandth time I have explained that to you.”

“Explain it the three-hundred-thousand-and-first time, then, dear Robin, and perhaps I’ll take it in.”

“Well,” began Robin, with a hypocritical sigh of despair, “you must know that everything in nature is more or less a conductor of electricity, but some things conduct it so well—such as copper and iron—that they are called conductors, and some things—such as glass and earthenware—conduct it so very badly that they scarcely conduct it at all, and are called non-conductors. D’ee see?”