| Show UNDER THE SEA A description OF THE WONDERFUL STEAMER MINIA one of the marine novelties of the world that on rare occasions comes into this port is now lying at a dock in erie brie basin the novelty is the steamship minia captain samuel trott a vessel built and used for making repairs bairs to the atlantic t telegraph ele graph cables belonging elo nging to the combination under the control of the leading men in tb western union telegraph company to a spectator on the dock the minia would scarcely attract attention as a marine novelty she is neither largo large nor small her length being feet feel breadth and depth she I 1 is rigged as a topsail schooner and she measures 1986 tons gross the one feature likely to eye from the deck is the appearance of three big grooved iron wheels side by side just where the bowsprit projects from ordinary y ships A look about the deck and down some of the batches however shows a number of peculiar atles the minia came herb about four weeks ago in order that she might repair certain injuries received about the rudder when engaged off the banks of newfoundland in repairing a break in the brest st pierre line of the anglo american cable the damage to the vessel was inconsiderable lor she was able to finish the repairs to the cable before coming here but the details of the work of picking up the ends of a broken cable and splicing in a new piece as related by one of the officers of the ship are interesting to one not familiar with the work the sending of a ship to pick up the end cad ut of an inch wire rope teet leet beneath toe surface of ahe sea seems very much like a wild goose chase but once the plans are understood it is simple enough though tedious at times not onty onti to nod find the ends but to pick them up and splice them to a new piece the break which the minia was sent to repair occurred early last summer the officers of the company first located the distance of the break from the stations on shore on each side of the ocean ane details of t the he inspru meat by which this is dove done are not easily described though easily under stood in principle the machine consists of a series of coils of offer a known resistance to the electric current enough of the culls coils are connected to make a resistance equal to the resistance offered by the entire cable when it is in working order and thus when the machine and the cable are connected a balance Is effected but if the cable should break the balance is destroyed because that portion of the cable between the shore station and the break wherever it may begill be will offer it less so resistance to the electric current carrent than the entire cable would do enough coils of wire are therefore dis connected from the machine to restore the balance the resistance of the part a rt of the cable that remains intact ra Is thus accurately determined by the number of coils remaining connected with the machine having when the cable was Intact learned the resistance which a mile of the cable offers bi dividing the entire resistance oy the number of mites miles of cable it is e easy to flud bow many miles of cable are still in good order by dividing the entire resistance of the piece by the known resistance of one mile this explanation may be a little complicated to one not fond of mathematical demonstrations but it is just as the 21 minions finias officer made it and it is remarkable for Us its lucidity when compared with the explanations which electricians generally make it is noticeable ti also from the fact that the word ohm the name of a unit of electrical energy and the bugbear of every one who does not know knew about electricity is omitted havin having determined how many miles from the shore station the break is orders are sent to the minia to go to the place pick up the ends and splice them to a new piece having received such an order and acted on it captain trott found himself and his bis ship on july mth last in latitude 42 deg 30 min north and longitude 46 deg 30 naib min west or just to the eastward of the grand anks of newfoundland with one of the hardest jobs before him that he had bad had in some time for sounding showed that the water was about feet or a good deal more than two miles deep he knew he was somewhere near the break in the cable but he did not know absolutely within about three or four miles because because be caupe while he had bad been able to determine his own position by repeated observations of the sun and stars lie he could not tell how accurate the observations of the officers of the ship laying the cable had bad been the first werk done was to get a series of soundings over a patch of the sea aea agg aggregating twenty five or thirty square miles the sounding apparatus cb insisted of an aa oblong shot of iron weighing about thirty two pounds attached to a wire in such a way that when lowered to the bottom the shot would jab a small steel tube into the mud down mere and would then release itself from the wire and allow the sailor to draw up the tube with the mud in it the moment the weight was re eased the men on deck stopped paying out the wire and thus knowing how wire oad bad been run out nut they were able to teji the depth it is ao an interesting fact that it took twenty and ten second tor for the weight of the son sounding anding apparatus to reach reaca bottom in 2097 fathoms of water having learned the depth of water and the character of the bottom a bi big black pear shaped buoy was put avei overboard and moored abut where the end of the broken section ought to have been according cordiner ac to the calculations the buoy is made of boiler iron and is arranged to support two large white lanterns git at night for the work to is carried on day and night when the weather will permit this buoy la Is kept from floating away with the tide by an anchor that looks like an open umbrella secured to the anchor wilh h was put over was a 45 fathom section of chain above that fathoms of patent rope invented by captain trott and consisting of part steel wire and part hemp strands it is designed for both strength and buoy I 1 ancy 1 n then came came 1101 fathoms of pure b manila i rope and above that enough mixed wire and fiber rope of different mods kinds to reach the surface and secure the buoy toe tae saip was now ready to begin the 14 search earch proper for the cable she was run off at right angles to the line of the cable lor a distance of five miles and a buoy got down to mark the limits ot of the territory to be grappled over in that ei buoys were afterward set elsewhere to mark the other limits of the territory the grappling iron was lowered over the bows the rope attached to it passing over one of the three big grooved wheels that revolve where the of an ordinary vessel stands stand the grappling rap pling iron used is the invention of captain trott it thing like a four pronged anchor it has a shaft four feet long and four arms about a toot foot long that are set at right angles to each other at the bot torn of the shaft right bight in each crotch formed by the arms is 13 a little button that has it ft spring behind it that may be regulated in strength the button projects a third of an inch into the crotch rhe auzle ancle of the arms with the shaft shaf t is ii so small that a rock could not get e down in so far as to reach the button but when the cable is caught by y the nooks it presses down asral ost the button and thus closes an electrical circuit through a copper wire running through the grapnels grannels grap nels rope and the grapnel itself and a bell is set ringing upon deck but the experienced men in charge of the grappling are generally able to tell what the book has 8 hold of without the aid of the bell the they judge by the strain on the rope which is by a dynamometer on deck the ord ordinary oar strain on the dynamometer is irom from three to three and a quarter tons when the grapnel is dragg dragging tug freely over a smooth bottom as the vessel forges slowly ahead sometimes a rock catches on the books this frequently breaks off an arm but sometimes it fetches clear the strain indicated by the dynamometer informing the old sailorman in charge whether an accident has happened or not it took look two hours and twenty minutes to get the grappling iron from the be bow of the ship down to the bottom of the sea 1 feet below the cable used to drag it with is the patent wire and hemp bemp invention of the captain the dragging drag eing began on july the day of arrival but they swept backward and forward over the territory for ten da days y wv without out hading finding the broken telegraph cable A good P part art of the time they were steaming back and forth day and night and the only time when they were not doing so was when the weather was too bad on 01 such occasions they went to the buoy at the a sup up posed end of the broken cable and dove bove to till the gale was ended finally on august ath the bell ran rang indicating that the grapnel bad caught caught the cable the grapnel drag rope was thereupon fastened to a buoy and thrown overboard then a steamer went off two miles toward the end of the bicken cable and got out a cutting grapnel this to Is like the other ether one except that there are knives in the crotches when these crotches catch the cable and a strain comes on them they cut the cable off clean why did you yon cut off the cable there was asked because it if we had tried to get up the bight of the cable where we first found it the cable bigat have broken under the strain the cable was laid in 1869 and is getting pretty well along in deais it would have been as apt to break on the shore side as the other but when we had only au end of two miles to deal with we were sure of being able to get it up without damage lf having cut off the cable the vessel returned to the buoy on the grappling rope and getting the rope inboard again led it to a drum drain six feet in diameter located on the upper deck and operated by a small engine then they began to wind in the grapnel rope and hoist the old cable to the bows thuy they started the drum at in the fhe afternoon of august eth and at had the bight of it a at the bow of the ship then the two miles and odd of end that wa was 8 hangin banging down frond from the bow was fished up a and stretched in teng lengths libs along th the deck deck U ti til I 1 the end was reached reach Wl this thi was con necked with a very complete estle cale telegraph office located amidships and a second later th the e 0 operators orators era tors who had been on watch f for 0 days feay a in the british station awaiting this h Is event saw the flashes on a mirror i in a their office that told them all about it sometimes it happens that when ao an end of the cable is picked up in this way and an attempt is made to communicate muni mui cate cabe with the he shore it Is found fo i and that there to is nother another break and that they have only lac cud of an aa odd see sec tiou lying loose then they have to 10 drop that thae over after testing it to see how long lon it is 12 and go 90 on boward the shore and begin over again in this case however they found that they had bad hold bold of a sound wire to great britain without any delay the end of a new cable was spliced to the old end brought from the bottom two experts one who Is trained in splicing cores and one who is trained in splicing the outside or sheathing are employed in ia this work when the splice was completed and aad tested and found perfect the cable was started running out around drums and grooved wheels controlled by brakes and over the stern the old end having been led fair through these sheaves before the splicing was done then the ship headed for shoal and rau ran away at from three or four knots an hour until over a part of the banks where work could be done more easily than where the water was more than two miles deep of course this involved the abandonment of a good many miles of old cable but the old cable of much importance anyhow arriving in shoal water the end of the now new piece was attached to a buoy and put overboard then the old cable was grappled and cut as before and a new piece spliced to it then the ends of the two pieces were spliced together and the job was complete compete it had bad taken nearly two months to do it although in the meantime two easier lobs jobs were attended to and a trip to halifax for provisions was made not to mention the encountering of the storm that damaged the rudder toe minla minia has a crew of ninety all told including the captain three deck officers a navigator three expert electricians ians four en engineers inders a purser and a surgeon A bla blackn Emith mitti and a boilermaker with their tools are carried there are three big round tanks to hold the miles allies of cable carried carriea which includes to fit alt all the old cables under the charge of this ship there is a cell room where the electricity for telegraphing is generated and two dynamos with their engines one to furnish electricity tor for a system of are arc lights used at work at night and the other for the incandescent system that lights the ship below decks the tain main saloon is large and is comfortably and handsomely fitted the captain has a cabin under the turtle back aft as fine as an any captain could wish for and the other officers have rooms below that are as well fitted as those usually occupied by naval officers the crew are all expert men and get pay that averages a good deal better than the in the packet service new york and liverpool the entire crew is kept under pay the year round the ship making gay her er headquarters at halifax when not engaged ia repairing cables afley are a as comfortable a lot of sailorman sail ormen as one could find anywhere A curious tact fact in connection with the immense amount of grappling done by this ship and the great number r of fam am f ples pies of the bottom brought up by the sounding apparatus the only products ot of human ingenuity ever raised by either grappling iron or sounding apparatus were two anchors of m modern 0 de rn cons construction traction and one oae sample of ashes evidently from some steamship it is said that enough sailors have been drowned between new york and liverpool to pave the bottom of the sea from port to port and that enough fishermen have gone down on the banks to cover them three deep bat no human remains have ever been brought up either by this ship or by any other dredger neither have any remains of the thousands of ships that have been wrecked in that region been encountered what becomes of these wrecks and the bodies of the lost sailous sailo is is a mystery which the officers of the minia have nut not been able to solve certainly they say if either remained intact on the surface of the sand saad at the bottom of the sea aea either the grappling iron or the so sounding anding apparatus in passing and re passing thousands of times over a part of the ocean where the wrecks are most numerous must bring up proof of their presence there new york sun |
