The Trans-Atlantic Cable

The first attempt to lay a cable was in 1857 and was a complete failure. On the very first day of the laying, the cable snapped while being laid, was grappled, and spliced back together. But the misfortune didn’t stop there, as it later snapped over what is known the “telegraph plateau,” a 2 mile deep section of the ocean. Earlier they were able to grapple the cable as it was only a few thousand feet down, but being over ten thousand feet deep, they had to abandon the project.

A year later in 1958, the two ships tried again, this time going in opposite directions from the middle of the ocean. The two ships met, spliced the cables, the turned around and went back to their respective shores, releasing thousands of pounds of cable as they went. Again, the cable broke several times, and was re-spliced together repeatedly. Eventually they had to abandon the project when they could not retrieve the cable.

Finally, on the third of attempt, the cable was successfully laid and secured to land line cables. On August 16, 1858, Queen Victoria sent a telegram to President Buchanan through the line, congratulating him on the success, who in turn sent his own message thanking her, and wishing that the cable would “prove to be a bond of perpetual peace and friendship between the kindred nations, and an instrument destined by Divine Providence to diffuse religion, civilization, liberty, and law throughout the world.” The next morning there was celebrating in both England and America, and the transatlantic cable was the talk of the countries for months.

In September of 1958, the insulation dissolved to a point where the cable stopped working. However Field was not dissuaded because he now knew that it could be accomplished. With the experience gained in the first attempts, they made a new cable that was wound with steel instead of iron and was saturated in preservative. The new cable weighed over twice what the first cable had weighed.

After one failed attempt, the connection was established, and a transatlantic cable was in existence once more. Later that year the cable that was lost in a previous attempt was found, reattached, and connected to Newfoundland. In the space of two months two cables had been put into operation (pbs.org).

Early on messages were sent via Morse Code, and even then only being able to transmit about eight words a minute. However this was a great improvement over messages that might have taken several weeks traveling by boat across the ocean now took only an hour or less. Because only a single message can be sent over a cable at a time, the cables were very expensive and used only by governments and big businesses. It was a big shock for people when messages would arrive before the time they were sent (due to time zones). Slowly over time the speed was increased and the number of cables grew. By the end of the nineteenth century there were dozens of cables stretched across the Atlantic, not only connecting to America and England but also France, Germany, and Spain.

Having this increase in communication began the “communication revolution”, which built on the telegraph. This also began the connecting of the world. Whereas at one time news of events could take place in one side of the world and the news would takes weeks or months to travel to the other side of the world, now it could be known in a matter of hours or days. With the extra information the average person began to learn more about the world outside of his own state, and a country a thousand miles away was no longer something that would just be read about in books, but something that was real and alive. In fact, the transatlantic cable showed that communication was possible over long distances and gave people the idea for cellphones and satellites. In the words of President Buchanan, “It is a triumph more glorious, because far more useful to mankind, than was ever won by conqueror on the field of battle.”