2-979-604 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Manufacture of the Atlantic Submarine Cable, at Glass, Elliott, and Co.'s Works, East Greenwich, [London], 1857. The firm has '...undertaken to complete 1250 miles within a specified period...The Atlantic cable may be divided into two parts, the core and the armour - the former being the conductor to be actually employed in the transmission of electrical sensations under the ocean between Europe and America, the latter only a protective and strengthening assistant whereby to deposit the insulated wire at the bottom of the sea. The core is composed of seven copper wires of the gauge known as No. 22, wound spirally together so as to form a strand or cord; the object of this arrangement, instead of a single wire of the same sectional area, being to provide against the possibility of any break of continuity taking place in the metal'. From "Illustrated London News", 1857.