working on the line with his own patented tools, using his special coils and heavy relays. He didn’t send any report to the directors for a week, which made everybody nervous. His excuse was that he was just adjusting things when, in reality, he was using bigger coils, batteries, and generators. They were receiving signals soon after, but they couldn’t make out any intelligible messages. They both worked independently to try
to get it online. After a few days, though, Thomson had to leave to return to the University of Glasgow to teach. He had not been able to see his classroom since May. Before he left, Whitehouse told him that he suspected that there was a fault in the cable a few miles in the harbor. The water was shallow, and he wanted to go and pull it up to check it. Thomson told Whitehouse that there was no evidence for this and that if there was a fault, it
Figure 13. Atlantic Telegraph Polka
we get technical
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