The Battery and the Boiler: Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables
1882
The Battery and the Boiler: Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables
1882
A storm rages over an emigrant ship in the mid-19th century, and in the chaos of the Atlantic, a boy is born. That child, Robin Wright, enters a world on the verge of transformation. As a boy, he is captivated by the strange, invisible force called electricity, spending his days conducting amateur experiments and dreaming of the day when human voices might travel beneath the oceans. When he finally joins the crew of a cable-laying expedition, Robin finds himself at the center of one of the greatest technological endeavors of the age: stringing wires across the floor of the Atlantic to connect continents that have never spoken to each other before. The work is grueling, dangerous, and utterly magnificent, requiring the kind of courage and ingenuity that defined the Victorian age at its most ambitious. Ballantyne, who made his name with The Coral Island, brings his characteristic vigor to this tale of scientific wonder and practical adventure, capturing a moment when humanity believed it could build a web of instant communication around the entire globe.
