'
The liberality of the Scotch universities allowed him to continue his
private enterprises, and the summer holiday was long enough to make a
trip round the globe.
The following June he was on board the Great Eastern while she laid the
French Atlantic cable from Brest to St. Pierre. Among his shipmates
were Sir William Thomson, Sir James Anderson, C. F. Varley, Mr. Latimer
Clark, and Willoughby Smith. Jenkin's sketches of Clark and Varley are
particularly happy. At St. Pierre, where they arrived in a fog, which
lifted to show their consort, the William Cory, straight ahead, and the
Gulnare signalling a welcome, Jenkin made the curious observation that
the whole island was electrified by the battery at the telegraph
station.
Jenkin's position at Edinburgh led to a partnership in cable work with
Sir William Thomson, for whom he always had a love and admiration.
Jenkin's clear, practical, and business-like abilities were doubtless an
advantage to Sir William, relieving him of routine, and sparing his
great abilities for higher work. In 1870 the siphon recorder, for
tracing a cablegram in ink, instead of merely flashing it by the moving
ray of the mirror galvanometer, was introduced on long cables, and
became a source of profit to Jenkin and Varley as well as to Sir
William, its inventor.
Pages:
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210