J. D. Wells, Northampton, Mass., has recently fitted up a large establishment in that place. Mr. W. is an old an experienced operator, and has five rooms in his establishment, a very fine sky and side light, and is prepared to execute such likenesses as will please the inhabitants of that beautiful village in the valley of the Connecticut.
=SUBMARINE TELEGRAPH BETWEEN ENGLAND AND FRANCE.=
The project of constructing a submarine telegraph between England and France, across the Straits of Dover, first announced during the year 1349,[A] has been in part accomplished. The following description of the laying down of the wire, we copy from an English Journal:--
[Footnote A: See Annual of Scientific Discovery, 1850, page 128.]
At one o'clock the steamer Goliath was ready to start across the Channel, with all the necessary apparatus on board, and a crew of about thirty men. Between the paddle-wheels, in the centre of the vessel, was a gigantic drum, or wheel, nearly fifteen feet long and seven feet in diameter, weighing seven tons, and fixed on a strong framework. Upon it was coiled up, in careful, close convulsions, about thirty miles of telegraphic wire, one-tenth of an inch in diameter, incased in a covering of gutta-percha, the thickness of the little finger. The point proposed to be reached, Cape Grinez, the nearest landmark to the English coast, and between Calais and Boulogne, is a distance of twenty-one miles, so that a surplus supply of nine miles of wire was held in reserve for the purpose of slackening. The connecting wires were placed in readiness at the Government pier in the harbor, and likewise at the Cape, where they run up the face of the acclivity, which is 194 feet above the sea-mark.
Some interesting experiments were first made upon a small scale to show the practicability of the plan. A mile of wire was paid out off the deck, from the pier to Shakspeare's Cliff, and the sinking process was proved to be a practicable performance. A communication was also sent through twenty four miles of wire. On Wednesday morning the experiment of sinking submarinely was practically commenced. The Goliath put out to the pier, with her telegraphic tackle and apparatus on board, under a calm sea and sky and a favoring wind. The connection between the thirty miles of telegraphic wire was then made good to 300 yards of the same wire inclosed in a leaden tube on shore, to prevent it being bruised by the shingle on the beach, and to enable the experimenters, as they proceeded out to sea, to send communications on shore. The vessel steamed out at the rate of three or four miles an hour into the open sea, in a direct track for Cape Grinez. The wire weighed five tons and the cylinder two. The operation of paying out the thirty miles of wire commenced on a signal to the sailors to "Go-ahead with the wheel, and pay out the wire," which was continuously streamed out over a roller at the stern of the vessel, the men at every 16th of a mile being busily engaged in riveting on to the wire, square leaden clamps, or weights of iron, from 14 lbs. to 24 lbs. in weight, which had the effect of sinking the wire to the bottom, which, on the English coast commences at a depth of 30 feet, and goes on varying from that to 100 and 180 feet, which latter, or 30 fathoms, is the greatest depth.