Submarine Telegraphy

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

the transmission of messages by electricity under the sea. The sending of messages by telegraph from one country to another, through wires buried many thousand feet beneath the water has come into general use since 1851, though the conception of its possibility dated back many years prior to that time. The very first suggestion that was ever made about a submarine cable was that made in the year 1795 by Salvia, a Spaniard, before the Academy of Sciences at Barcelona. Two years later this same Spaniard proposed to connect Barcelona and the island of Majorca by a submarine telegraph line. In 1803 Aldini, who was a nephew of the celebrated Galvini, made some interesting experiments in the transmission of electric signals under the sea near Calais, France. In 1812 Schilling ignited powder by electricity transmitted through a sub-aqueous conducting wire under the Neva river, near St. Petersburg. John Robert Sharpe of England transmitted electric signals through seven miles of insulated sub-aqueous wire. This was in 1813. In 1838 it was demonstrated that subaqueous telegraphy was a matter which could be practically handled. This was done in actual experiments by Colonel Pasley of the Royal Engineers at Chatterton in England. Just one year after Pasley's work in England Dr. O'Shaughnessy, the director of the East India Company's telegraph system, transmitted telegraphic signals through insulated wires under the Hugli river in India. About this time numerous inventors in many parts of the world thought of new experiments, and the art of submarine telegraphy began to grow. Prof. Charles Wheatstone of England suggested in 1840 the practicability of connecting Dover, England, with Calais, France, by a submarine cine telegraph. In the United States Samuel F. B. Morse, in 1842, transmitted electric signals along a copper wire between Castle Garden and Governor's Island in New York harbor. In 1843 Professor Morse suggested the possibility of connecting Europe and the United States by a submarine cable line. Meanwhile Samuel Colt was operating submarine cables between New York city, Coney Island and Fire Island. In 1845 Ezra Cornell laid 12 miles of copper wire in the Hudson river between New York and Fort Lee. The wires were insulated and inclosed in a lead pipe and were successfully operated till they were destroyed by ice. În 1846 Charles West obtained permission from the British Government to connect Do- SUBPŒNA, or SUBPENA ver and Calais by copper wire, and one year later J. J. Craven of the United States, a resident of New Jersey, conducted a section of the New York and Washington telegraph line through the waters of a creek. The experiment was successful in every way. In 1849 Armstrong proposed that a telegraph line be laid between Europe and the United States. In 1851 the first important submarine telegraph line was opened for business. It was laid by a company of English and French capitalists. The cable consisted of four copper wires, insulated with gutta-percha, surrounded by tarred hemp and protected by 10 galvanized iron wires wound spirally around it. The weight of this cable was seven tons to the mile; it was 25 miles long, and was sunk in 120 feet of water. In 1853 six submarine cables were laid connecting various parts of England, Ireland and Scotland. In the following year five more cables were laid in Europe, the longest of which was 64 miles. In 1856 several cables were laid in waters much deeper than formerly. One of these, running from Spezia, Italy, to Corsica, weighed eight tons to the mile, and was sunk to a depth of 600 feet. By 1906 there were sixteen transatlantic serviceable cables. In 1914, before the World War, there were seventeen cables between the United States and Europe. The German cables to America were cut as a war measure. This acted greatly to the disadvantage of Germany. The Treaty of Versailles left all German cables in the hands of the Allied or neutral nations.