This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1869 Excerpt: ... lifting cable under one of the barbs on the shank of the hook, waits for the larger vessel, which, as it passes on its westerly course, deposits it s cable in the hook and proceeds until the telegraph cable rests again on the bottom, leaving a certain length suspended from the stern of the smaller vessel in the form ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1869 Excerpt: ... lifting cable under one of the barbs on the shank of the hook, waits for the larger vessel, which, as it passes on its westerly course, deposits it s cable in the hook and proceeds until the telegraph cable rests again on the bottom, leaving a certain length suspended from the stern of the smaller vessel in the form of two catenarian curves, extending each from the hook to the bottom of the sea, one in an easterly and the other in a westerly direction. If the depth of the sea at that point should be two miles, the speed of the larger vessel in laying the cable could be so regulated that the span between the two points at which the cable would touch the bottom would be eight miles, and in that case the length of cable included in the two catenarian curves would be about nine miles, and the hook and lifting-cable would support nine miles of telegraph cable at the stern of the smaller vessel. The smaller vessel should then proceed due north for two miles, the lifting-cable meanwhile being allowed to sink and unwind itself from a reel till the whole of the nine miles of telegraph cable included in the catenarian curves is deposited on the bottom of the sea, as nearly as possible at right angles to the general course of the rest of the line. The lifting-cable should then be made, by the weight of the ring at its end, to detach itself from the hook, and should be drawn up and wound again around its reel in the smaller vessel, which should all the while be continuing on its course due north paying" out the iron-wire rope and its inclosed glass-sphere buoys to any desired distance--five miles, or ten miles, or more if deemed expedient. The galvauized-iron wire rope should be made to terminate in an anchor, and when this anchor is dropped in the sea the rope m...
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