Submarine Cable
In the mid-XIXth century, crossing the Atlantic required at least ten days at sea. In 1840, Samuel Morse launched an idea that seemed like fantasy: connecting Europe to America with a telegraph cable at the bottom of the ocean. This almost delirious vision would transform our relationship with time and space.
A businessman named Cyrus W. Field seized on this ambition. After building his fortune in the paper industry, he took an interest in telegraphy during the 1850s. His first project, modest in scope, aimed to connect St. John's, Newfoundland to New York, taking over from engineer Frederic Newton Gisborne's work. Funding ran short. No matter, Field thought bigger and redirected everything toward a transatlantic link.
The Atlantic Telegraph Company was born in 1856 on the initiative of Field and engineers John Watkins Brett and Charles Tilston Bright, two Britons experienced in submarine telecommunications. London and Washington participated in the financing. The cable's design sparked passionate discussions among specialists. Morse, supported by Michael Faraday, argued for a thin wire limiting signal delay. William Thomson, the future Lord Kelvin, defended a thick copper core reducing electrical resistance.
The Gutta Percha Company finally manufactured this revolutionary cable. Its structure ultimately consisted of seven twisted copper wires creating a 2.1-millimeter conductor, wrapped in three layers of gutta-percha, a resin extracted from an Indonesian tree. A protective layer of tarred hemp and a metal armor completed the assembly, for a final diameter of about 1.6 centimeters.
No ship could carry the necessary 3,200 kilometers of cable alone. The operation therefore mobilized two vessels: the British HMS Agamemnon and the American USS Niagara. Loading took three weeks, already attracting journalists' attention and public curiosity.
The first attempt in 1857 was a failure. The cable broke near the Irish coast. The following year, three attempts followed in succession. On July 29, 1858, the ships met in the middle of the ocean, connected their cable sections and departed in opposite directions. On August 5, the continents were finally linked between Bull's Arm Bay in Newfoundland and Telegraph Field on the Irish island of Valentia.
On August 16, 1858, Queen Victoria and President James Buchanan exchanged messages. Transmitting the sovereign's 98 words took nearly sixteen hours, a delay that represented a prodigious advance at the time.
Euphoria erupted on both sides of the ocean. New York organized a parade and fireworks so enthusiastic they partially set City Hall ablaze. Trinity Church celebrated the event in lower Manhattan. In London, Atlantic Telegraph Company shares doubled in value while Charles Tilston Bright received a knighthood.
Jeweler Tiffany & Co. sensed an opportunity and purchased the hundreds of kilometers of unused cable brought back by the USS Niagara. The company transformed them into souvenirs, ten-centimeter segments with brass ends and descriptive plates sold for fifty cents apiece. Other merchants followed with cufflinks, earrings and letter openers.
The magic was short-lived and within weeks, the cable stopped functioning, transmissions became illegible. Edward Orange Wildman Whitehouse, technical director at the Irish terminus, had applied excessive voltages up to 2000 volts, convinced that intensity needed to increase with distance. A 1985 analysis by historian Donard de Cogan would also reveal manufacturing problems, the off-center central conductor passing dangerously close to the outer metal armor. The marriage of these defects with the imperfect insulation of the gutta-percha and material impurities sealed the cable's death warrant.
During its brief existence, this first link transmitted 732 messages. Among them, the British order to cancel the deployment of two regiments to India, the local rebellion having been brought under control. This decision saved between 50,000 and 60,000 pounds sterling, roughly one-seventh of the cable's cost.
The technical failure provoked rumors and accusations of fraud. Cyrus W. Field, far from being discouraged and still supported by the British government, persevered. The Atlantic Telegraph Company finally installed a permanent link in 1866. This project, completed at a time when running water and electricity remained inaccessible to most people, testifies to an extraordinary vision.
This first electrical crossing of the Atlantic marks the history of communications. It proved the possibility of instantaneous intercontinental exchanges and heralded the architecture of the global network of submarine cables on which all of today's Internet rests.