The Ocean Cable.

Cromwell Argus, Volume VII, Issue 316, 1 December 1875, Page 1 (Supplement)

The Ocean Cable.

He (the ocean telegraph operator taps the "key" as in a land telegraph, om/ it is a double key. It has two levers aid knobs instead of one. The alphabet ixscl is substantially the same as the Morse fiphabet—that, is, the different letters are by a combination of dashes and cots. For instance, suppose yon want to writj the word "boy." It would read like this:-"— >...

<~. " B. is one daslund three dots, O, three dashes, and Y, ine dash, one dot, and three dashes. Now, it the laud telegraph the dashes and the dos would appear on the strip of paper at the (ther end of the lino, which is unwound from acylinder, and performed by a pin at the end e a bar or armature. If the operator can read jy sound, lie would dispense with the strip <f paper, and read the message by the " clicf of the armature as it is pulled down and It go by the electric magnet. The cable operator, however, has neither of these advantages. There is no paper to perforate, no " click" of the armauro, no armature to " click." The message i read bymeans of a moving flash of light upon a polished scale produced by the detlecion of a very small mirror which is placed dthin a " mirror galvanometer," which is i small brass cylinder two or three inches in dimeter shaped like a spool or bobbin, compsed of several hundred turns of small wire Mound with silk to keep the metal from coring in contact. Tt is wound or coiled exact? like a bundle of new rope, a small hole bein left in the middle about the size of a ommon -Wooden pencil. In the contre of thisis suspended a very thin, delicate mirror abut as large as a kernel of corn, with a compondingly small magnet rigidly attached p the back of it. The whole weighs but littlmore than a grain, and is suspended by a jingle fibre of silk, much smaller than a humailurir, and almost invisible. A. narrow horinntal scale is placed within a darkened box ior " feet in front of the mirror, a narrow slitlcing cut in the centre of the scale to allow ray of light to shine upon the mirror from damp placed behind the said scale, the little rhror in turn reflecting the light back upon the [ale. This spot of light upon the scale is the idex by which all messages arc read. The &<ric through which the ray moves is double hat traversed by the mirror itself, and is, tirefore, really equivalent to an index 4 or sft. in length, without weight. To the casual observer there isnothmgrut a thin ray of light, darting to the right tul left with irregularrapidity ; but to the traikl eye of the operator every flash is replete w,h intelligence. Thus the word " boy" alrerty alluded to, would be read in this way: (!e flash to the right and three to the left is [ Three flashes to the right is O. One to tk right, one to the left, and two more to t\ right is Y, and so on. Long and constat practice makes the operators wonderful! expert in their profession, and enables ther to read from the mirror as readily and s accurately as from a newspaper.