Sir Charles Tilston Bright (1832-1888): The great feat of the century

Задание I. Следующие слова Вам нужно выучить наизусть, это поможет Вам понять текст.

1. Feat – блестящие достижения;

2. require – требовать;

3. to knight – посвящать в рыцари;

4. spawn – плодить, создавать, порождать;

5. employment – работа, служба;

6. wire up – прокладывать провода;

7. prosper – преуспевать, процветать;

8. pulley – шкив, блок;

9. drum – барабан;

10. noteworthy – заметный;

11. resistance – сопротивление;

12. pledge – торжественно;

13. celebration – празднование;

14. ado – суета, суматоха;

15. insulation – изоляция;

16. inception – начало;

17. jinx – проклятие;

18. inquiry – наведение справок;

19. pursue – преследовать, гнаться за;

20. grapple – сцепливать.

Задание II. В прочитанном тексте найдите информацию и расскажите по-английски.

1. Расскажите об идее прокладывания кабеля через Атлантический океан (авторы, протяженность).

2. Расскажите все, что вы узнал о биографии Брайта.

3. Расскажите о двух значимых патентах Магнетик компании.

4. Расскажите о том, как осуществилась связь (телефон. соединение) между Ирландией и Ньюфаундлендом.

Задание III. Будьте готовы перевести любое предложение из текста, если преподаватель попросит вас об этом.

TEXT

What the Channel Tunnel is today, in some ways the Atlantic telegraph cable was in the middle of the last century: a visionary engineering enterprise and a link between nations. Samuel Morse called it "the great feat of the century". Once the telegraph traffic started to flow, what some had opposed as undesirable became essential and more Atlantit cables were soon required. At least 17 were laid before the end of the century.

Charles Tilston Bright was Engineer-in-Chief of the Atlantic Telegraph Company, a position he occupied at the age of 24. Imagine a 24-year-old being appointed chief engineer of the Channel Tunnel! Though largely forgotten now he was a famous figure in his day. He was knighted for his achievements at the age of 26, the youngest knight for generations.

Commercial telegraphy began in a small way in 1839 and in the next decade became well established in developed nations. In 1850 England and France were linked by the first submarine telegraph, laid by the brothers Jacob and John Watkins Brett. It soon failed, but on November 13 the next year another cable linked Dover and Calais and saw successful service for 24 years. Demand soon justified other cross-channel links. After the success of the Channel cables, other short and shallow stretches of sea were crossed, but not always at the first attempt and with the loss off much expensive telegraph cable. London's Thameside spawned a new industry of cable manufacture.

To cross the Atlantic

Meanwhile, a British engineer had held a conversation with an American businessman. The engineer was Frederick Gisborne, who was then constructing a telegraph line from New York to Newfoundland and which was to include a cable across the Gulf of St Lawrence. The businessman was Cyrus W. Field.

Gisborne, who needed fresh financial backing for the Newfoundland project, suggested the idea of continuing the line from Newfoundland across the Atlantic to England: an Atlantic cable. Lieutenant Matthew Maury, a US Navy oceanographer, assured Field that there was a route across the ocean bed where a cable might be laid. With Field's financial and managerial help the New York to Newfoundland telegraph was completed and the cable laid across the Gulf of St Lawrence. For this, Field had to travel to Britain to obtain cable and ships. John Brett, who had laid the Channel cable, became his supporter and adviser.

The idea of an Atlantic cable caught Field's imagination and for the next 12 years he was to be the driving force behind this daring adventure. He enhused leading scientists and engineers (some like Thomson, later Lord Kelvin, taking no pay). A seven-core cable using 20 000 miles of copper wire was constructed, paying out machinery designed, two battleships borrowed, and Charles Bright selected as chief engineer. Within four years of Field's and Gisborne's first conversation, telegraph messages were exchanged between Britain and America. Though success was short-lived because the cable soon failed, they had proved their point. Field had shown the political and commercial potential of the cable and Bright had shown it was technically possible.