If only half of it be true, interjected Mr Wright.
But it aint true, said Captain Rik firmly. They talk a deal of stuff about it, more than nine-tenths of which is liespure fable. I dont believe in electricity; more than that, I dont believe in steam. Batteries and boilers are both bosh!
But, uncle, you cant deny that they exist, said Robin.
Of course not, replied the captain. I know as well as you domaybe betterthat theres a heap o telegraph-wires rove about the world like great spiders webs, and that there are steamboats hummin an buzzinay, an bustin tooall over the ocean, like huge wasps, an a pretty mess they make of it too among them! Why, there was a poor old lady the other day that was indooced by a young nephy to send a telegraphic message to her husband in Manchestershe bein in London. She was very unwillin to do it, bein half inclined to regard the telegraph as a plant from the lower regions. The message sent was, Your lovin wife hopes youll be home to-morrow. It reached the husband, Your lowerin wife hopes youll be hung to-morrow. Bad writin and a useless flourish at the e turned home into hung. The puzzled husband telegraphs in reply, Mistake somewhereall rightshall be back three oclockto-morrowkind love. And how dye think this reached the old lady?Mistake somewhereall nightstabbed in backthrough cloaktwo more rowskilled, love. Now, dyou call that successful telegraphing?
Not very, admitted Robin, with a laugh, but of the thousands of messages that pass to and fro daily there cannot be many like these, I should think.
But what did the poor wife do? asked Madge anxiously.
Do? repeated Rik indignantly, as though the misfortune were his ownfor he was a very sympathetic captaindo? Why, she gave a yell that nigh knocked the young nephy out of his reason, and fell flat on the floor. When she came to, she bounced up, bore away for the railway station under full sail, an shipped for Manchester, where she found her husband, alive and hearty, pitchin into a huge beefsteak, which he very properly said, after recovering from his first surprise, was big enough for two.
But what objection have you to steamers, uncle Rik? asked Mrs Wright; Im sure they are very comfortable and fast-going.
Comfortable and fast-goin! repeated the old sailor, with a look of supreme contempt, yes, theyre comfortable enough when your berth aint near the paddles or the boilers; an theyre fast-goin, no doubt, specially when they bust. But aint the nasty things made of ironlike kitchen kettles? and wont that rust? an if you knock a hole in em wont they go down at once? an if you clap too much on the safety-valves wont they go up at once? Bah! pooh!theres nothin like the wooden walls of old England. You may take the word of an old salt for it,them wooden walls will float and plough the ocean when all these new-fangled iron pots are sunk or blowed to atoms. Why, look at the Great Eastern herself, the biggest kettle of em all, what a precious mess she made of herself! At first she wouldnt move at all, when they tried to launch her; then they had to shove her off sidewise like a crab; then she lost her rudder in a gale, an smashed all her cabin furniture like a bad boy with his toys. Bah! I only hope I may be there when she busts, for itll be a grand explosion.
Im sorry you have so bad an opinion of her, uncle, for I am appointed to serve in the Great Eastern while layin the Atlantic Cable.
Sorry to hear it, lad; very sorry to hear it. Of course I hope for your sake that she wont blow up on this voyage, though its nothin more or less than an absurd ship goin on a wild-goose chase.
But, uncle, submarine cables have now passed the period of experiment, said Robin, coming warmly to the defence of his favourite subject. Just consider, from the time the first one was laid, in 1851, between Dover and Calais, till now, about fifteen years, many thousands of miles of conducting-wire have been laid along the bottom of the sea to many parts of the world, and they are in full and successful operation at this moment. Why, even in 1858, when the first Atlantic Cable was laid, the Gutta-percha Company had made forty-four submarine cables.
I know it, lad, but it wont last. Its all sure to bust up in course of time.
Then, though the attempt to lay the last Atlantic Cable proved a failure, continued Robin, the first one, the 1858 one, was a success at the beginning, no one can deny that.
Ay, but how long did it last? demanded the skipper, hitting the table with his fist.
Oh, please, have pity on the tea-cups, uncle Rik, cried the hostess.
Beg pardon, sister, but I cant help getting riled when I hear younkers talkin stuff. Why, do you really suppose, said the captain, turning again to Robin, that because they managed in 58 to lay a cable across the Atlantic, and exchange a few messages, which refused to travel after a few days, that theyll succeed in layin down a permanent speakin trumpet between old England and Noofnland2000 miles, more or lessin spite o gales an currents, an ships anchors, an insects, an icebergs an whales, to say nothing o great sea-sarpints an such like?
Uncle Rik, I do, said Robin, with intensely earnest eyes and glowing cheeks.
Bravo! Robin, youll do it, I do believe, if it is to be done at all; give us your hand, lad.
The old sailors red countenance beamed with a huge smile of kindness as he shook his enthusiastic nephews hand.
There, he added, Ill not say another word against iron kettles or Atlantic cables. If you succeed Ill give batteries and boilers full credit, but if you fail Ill not forget to remind you that I said it would all bust up in course of time.
With note-book and pencil in hand Robin went down the very next day to the works of the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company, where the great cable was being made.
Presenting his letter of introduction from Mr Smith, Robin was conducted over the premises by a clerk, who, under the impression that he was a very youthful and therefore unusually clever newspaper correspondent, treated him with marked respect. This was a severe trial to Robins modesty; nevertheless he bore up manfully, and pulling out his note-book prepared for action.
The reader need not fear that we intend to inflict on him Robins treatise on what he styled the Great Atlantic Cable, but it would be wrong to leave the subject without recording a few of those points which made a deep impression on him.
The cable when completed, sir, said the clerk, as he conducted his visitor to the factory, will be 2300 nautical miles in length.
Indeed, said Robin, recording the statement with solemn gravity and great accuracy; but I thought, he added, that the exact distance from Ireland to Newfoundland was only 1600 miles.
You are right, sir, but we allow 700 miles of slack for the inequalities of the bottom. Its cost will be 700,000 pounds, and the whole when finished will weigh 7000 tons.
Poor Robins mind had, of course, been informed about ton-weights at school, but he had not felt that he realised what they actually signified until the thought suddenly occurred that a cart-load of coals weighed one ton, whereupon 7000 carts of coals leaped suddenly into the field of his bewildered fancy. A slightly humorous tendency, inherited from his mother, induced 7000 drivers, with 7000 whips and a like number of smock-frocks, to mount the carts and drive in into the capacious hold of the Great Eastern. They turned, however, and drove instantly off his brain when he came into the august presence of the cable itself.
The central core of the cablethat part by which the electric force or fluid was to pass from the Old World to the New, and vice versa, was made of copper. It was not a solid, single wire, but a strand composed of seven fine wires, each about the thickness of a small pin. Six of these wires were wound spirally round the seventh. This was in order to prevent what is termed a breach of continuity, for it will be at once perceived that while a single wire of the core might easily break in the process of laying the cable, and thereby prevent the flow of electricity, the probability of the seven small wires all breaking at the same spot was so remote as to be almost impossible, and if even one wire out of the seven held, the continuity would remain. Nay, even all the seven might break, but, so long as they did not all break at the same place, continuity would not be lost, because copper would still continue to touch copper all throughout the cables length.
In the process of construction, the central wire of the copper core was first covered with a semi-liquid coating of gutta-percha, mixed with tarknown as Chattertons Compound. This was laid on so thick that when the other wires were wound round it all air was excluded. Then a coating of the same compound was laid over the finished conductor, and thus the core was solidified. Next, the core was surrounded with a coating of the purest gutta-perchaa splendid non-conductor, impervious to waterwhich, when pressed to it, while in a plastic state, formed the first insulator or tube to the core. Over this tube was laid a thin coat of Chattertons Compound for the purpose of closing up any small flaws or minute holes that might have escaped detection. Then came a second coating of gutta-percha, followed by another coating of compound, and so on alternately until four coats of compound and four of gutta-percha had been laid on.
This core, when completed, was wound in lengths on large reels, and was then submerged in water and subjected to a variety of severe electrical tests so as to bring it as near as possible to a state of perfection, after which every inch of it was examined by hand while being unwound from the reels and re-wound on the large drums on which it was to be forwarded to the covering works at East Greenwich, there to receive its external protecting sheath.
All this, and much more besides, did Robin Wright carefully note down, and that same evening went home and delivered a long and luminous lecture, over which his mother wondered, Madge rejoiced, his father gloried, and uncle Rik fell asleep.
Next day he hastened to the covering works, and, presenting his credentials, was admitted.
Here he saw the important and delicate core again carefully tested as to its electrical condition, after which it received a new jacket of tanned jute yarn to protect it from the iron top coat yet to come. Its jute jacket on, it was then coiled away in tanks full of water, where it was constantly kept submerged and continuously tested for insulation. Last of all the top coat was put on. This consisted of ten wires of peculiarly fine and strong iron. Each of these ten wires had put on it a special coat of its own, made of tarred Manilla yarn, to protect it from rust as well as to lighten its specific gravity. The core being brought from its tank, and passed round several sheaves, which carried it below the factory floor, was drawn up through a hole in the centre of a circular table, around the circumference of which were ten drums of the Manilla-covered wire. A stout iron rod, fastened to the circumference of the table, rose from between each drum to the ceiling, converging in a cone which passed through to the floor above. Our core rose in the middle of all, and went through the hollow of the cone. When all was put in noisy and bewildering motion, the core which rose from the turning-table and whirling drums as a thin jute-clad line, came out in the floor above a stout iron-clad cable, with a Manilla top-dressing, possessing strength sufficient to bear eleven miles of its own length perpendicularly suspended in wateror a margin of strength more than four and a half times that required,and with a breaking strain of seven tons fifteen hundredweight.
When thoroughly charged and primed, Robin went off home to write his treatise.
Then he received the expected summons to repair on board the Great Eastern, and bade adieu to his early home.
It was of no use that Robin tried to say good-bye in a facetious way, and told Madge and his mother not to cry, saying that he was only going across the Atlantic, a mere fish-pond, and that he would be home again in a month or two. Ah! these little efforts at deception never avail. Himself broke down while urging Madge to behave herself, and when his mother gave him a small Bible, and said she required no promise, for she knew he would treasure and read it, he was obliged hastily to give her a last fervent hug, and rush from the house without saying good-bye at all.
Chapter Seven.
The Big ShipFirst Night Aboard
When our hero at last reached the Great Eastern, he soon found himself in what may be termed a lost condition. At first he was disappointed, for he saw her at a distance, and it is well-known that distance lends deception as well as enchantment to the view. Arrived alongside, however, he felt as if he had suddenly come under the walls of a great fortress or city.
Presently he stood on the deck of the Big Ship, as its familiars called it, and, from that moment, for several days, was, as we have said, in a lost condition. He was lost in wonder, to begin with, as he gazed at the interminable length and breadth of planking styled the deck, and the forest of funnels, masts, and rigging, and the amazing perspective, which caused men at the further end from where he stood to look like dolls.
Then he was lost in reality, when he went below and had to ask his way as though he were wandering in the labyrinths of a great city. He feltor thought he feltlike a mere mite in the mighty vessel. Soon he lost his old familiar powers of comparison and contrast, and ere long he lost his understanding altogether, for he fell down one of the hatchways into a dark abyss, where he would probably have ended his career with electric speed if he had not happily fallen into the arms of a human being, with whom he rolled and bumped affectionately, though painfully, to the bottom of the stair.
The human being, growled intense disapprobation during the process, and Robin fancied that the voice was familiar.
Come, I say, said the being, remonstratively, this is altogether too loving, you know. Dont squeeze quite so tight, young un, whoever you be.
Oh, I beg your pardon, gasped Robin, relaxing his grasp when they stopped rolling; Im so sorry. I hope I havent hurt you.
Hurt me! laughed Jim Slagg, for it was he; no, you small electrician, you avent got battery-power enough to do me much damage; but what dye mean by it? Is this the way to meet an old friend? Is it right for a Wright to go wrong at the wery beginnin of his career? But come, I forgive you. Have you been introdooced to Capting Anderson yet?
No! Who is he?
Who is he, you ignorant crokidile! why, hes the capting of the Great Eastern, the commander o the Big Ship, the Great Mogul o the quarter-deck, the king o the expedition. But, of course, you avent bin introdooced to him. He dont associate much with small fry like usmores the pity, for it might do im good. But come, Ill take you under my wing for the present, because your partikler owner, Ebbysneezer Smith, aint come aboard yetashore dissipatin, I suppose,an everybodys so busy gettin ready to start that nobody will care to be bothered with you, so come along.