MID-OCEAN TELEGRAPH STATIONS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 111, 24 March 1870, Page 7

MID -OCEAN TELEGRAPH STATIONS.

(From the " Globe."; The establishment of a series of floating telegraph stations has long been considered a matter of national importance, and it is an object to which many scientific gentleman have given attention. There have been a number of investigations as to the peculiar construction of craft necessary for the purpose of maintaining a communication by means of a submarine telegraph cable between mid-ocean and the land. The last scheme, that of the International Mid-Dcean-Telegraph Company (Limited), is now to be put on its practical trial. We learn that the Government, on Thursday week, decided to grant this Company the loan' of H.M.S. Brisk, which is to form the first floating telegraph station. This will be moored some 60 miles outatsea, off Penzanceharbour. The Brisk, although a tolerably good vessel, is likely to have her seagoing qualities severely tested, as the spot whereon she will be quartered, named in the charts "Admiralty Patch," is exposed to terrific weather during the winter months. She is now being thoroughly overhauled and fitted as a regular telegraph station. Her engines and telegraph machinery are to be supplemented with the latesb improvements, the board of directors having ordered everything to make her complete for the service. Formeily a general opinion prevailed against ordinary vessels, riding out at anchor in a severe gale, owing to the attendant danger. A number of inventors came for war' l, with differnt designs of ships, all more or less strongly averse to the era ploy ment of an ordinary vessel, or, technically speaking, those known to possess " a fine entrance, clearance, and a flat broad floor," as ocean telegraph stations ; the forms of floating-body favored by them consistng gener-illy in a huge square iron cistern, rounding off at the corners into a kind of a buoy, which was said to add materially to its floating powers, at the same time checking the action of the structure. These constructions it was proposed should be anchored from the centres. The Persian G-ulf and Atlantic telegraph cables, however, demonstrated the practicability for an ordinary ship to '" hold on" to a telegraph cable during the height of a south-west monsoon or an Atlantic gale. This has been accomplished in the Indian Sea 3 and Atlantic Ocean, proving that a ship rides comfortable at anchor with plenty of slack cable down. This being evidenced on many occasions during the laying of the Persian Gulf and Atlantic cables, has so far removed the prejudices as to ordinary ships for telegraph stations, that the projector of the Mid-Ocean Telegraph Company, Captain Kuapp Barrow, found little difficulty in securing the assistance of Captain Sherard Osborn, Sir Samuel Canning, with Messrs 11. Sambine and Latiner Clark as engineers for his scheme. These gentlemen have certified to the practicability of the scheme 'of Captain Barrow, whose services in this undertaking is a guarantee of success. The advantages which the public are to derive from a system of iloating telegraph stations are insignificant compared with the benefits to be derived by the owners of over 40,000 British vessels and the mercantile community. The Brisk is to be in electrial communication with the Penzauce postoffi.ee, and a powerful steam-tug will act as her tender. She lies in the fairway of every homeward bound vessel, and to Indian, Australian, and China clippers she can give their sailing orders thus saving an immense expense which they would necessarily entail by calling for the same at any port A ship may report herself to the Brisk and in twenty minutes afterwards her arrival would be known at the office of her owner in the city of London, and within an hour of her making the telegraph stations, her destination can be altered at the pleasure of her owner. For such important orders as these the Bolton code must prove invaluable. By the end of next month the Brisk is to take up her position, and as soon afterwards as possible the telegraph cable to land wi)l be laid.

The Rev. Dr. Kayser, a Catholic military chaplin at Diisselclorf, has been suspended from office by the Bishop of Cologne, for marrying the Priu-e ot lioumauia to a Protestant la.lv, when neither he ror she were in ■„ position to promise fhat their issue eLiould be brought up in the Catholic fa.ua.