1-154-946 - Oxford Science Archive/Heritage Images

Telegraph wire at the Greenwich works, c1865. The plate is one of 26 illustrations by Robert Dudley in The Atlantic Telegraph, a book by WH Russell, 1866. This shows the reels of gutta percha-covered conducting wire being prepared to be taken for loading on to the Great Eastern, the steamship designed by Brunel. This was for the second attempt to lay a permanent transatlantic communications cable. The third attempt, the following year, was successful and reduced communication times from the length of a sea voyage to a few seconds.