Note 258 — Chapter XVI

It may not now be the case, but I have known a chain cable, made of the best iron, and it would only be iron of the best description which could stand such a strain, stretched from 150 fathoms, its length when manufactured, to 155 fathoms after it had passed through the testing-machine. Such an enormous strain must injure the fibre of the iron, and, thereby, its elasticity, even though most of this stretch would probably be due to the links fitting closer into each other, and the actual stretch of the iron itself only a small portion of the whole. But in either case the elasticity of the fibre would most likely be injured, perhaps destroyed.