It is a long night which has no morning. At last the day is breaking. While weary eyes are watching the East, daylight comes over the sea. Five years have passed away, and though the time seemed long as an Arctic winter, that only made more bright the rising of the sun. Those years of patient experiment, when scientific men were applying tests without number, and submarine lines were feeling their way along the deep-sea floor in all the waters of the world, at last brought forth their fruit in that renewed confidence which is the forerunner of victory. So strong was this feeling, that as early as August, 1863, although the capital was not raised, the Board advertised for proposals for a cable suitable to be laid across the Atlantic Ocean; and in order to leave invention entirely unfettered, abstained from any dictation as to the form or materials to be adopted, merely stipulating for a working speed of eight words a minute. To this request they received, in the course of a few weeks, seventeen different proposals from as many Such was the cable which this eminent firm offered to manufacture, and to lay across the Atlantic, and that on terms so favorable, that it seemed as if it could not be difficult to raise the capital and proceed with the work. Indeed, a contract was partially made to that effect. So confident was Mr. Field, who was then in London, that an expedition would sail the following summer, that he insured his stock, part of it only against ordinary sea-risks, but part also to be laid and to work! But hardly had he left England before there was some unforeseen hitch in the arrangements, the money was not forthcoming, or some of the conditions were not complied with, and he had the mortification to receive letters, saying that the whole enterprise was postponed for another year! This was indeed discouraging. Yet this sudden dropping of the scheme did not imply a loss of interest or of faith on the part of those embarked in it. They believed in it as much as ever. But the general public did not respond to the call for more capital. Alas that the noblest enterprises should so often be delayed or defeated by the want of money! Capital is always But it is not in human nature—least of all in American nature—to despond long. Though ten years of constant defeat would seem to have wrought a lasting discouragement, yet again and again did the baffled spirit of enterprise return to the attempt. In January, 1864, Mr. Field was once more on his way to England. He found the Directors, as before, deeply interested in the enterprise, and wishing it success. With a grateful heart he bore witness to their unfaltering courage. But mere courage and good wishes would not lay the Atlantic Telegraph. Yet what could they do? They could not be expected to advance all the capital themselves. They had already subscribed liberally, and he could not ask them to do more. But with all the efforts that had been made in England and America, not half the capital was yet raised. The machinery was in a dead lock, with little prospect of being able to move. It was the misfortune of the enterprise that there was no one man who made it his sole and exclusive The first element needed to put life into the old system was an infusion of new blood—new capital and new men. While the enterprise was in this state of collapse, Mr. Field addressed himself to a gentleman with whom, until then, he had no personal acquaintance, but who was well known in London as one of the largest capitalists of Great Britain—Mr. Thomas Brassey. Their first interview was somewhat remarkable. Referring to it a few months after, Mr. Field said:
Having thus secured one powerful ally, Mr. Field took courage in the hope to find another. He says:
This was putting strong arms to the wheel. A few days after, a combination was formed to carry on the whole business of making Submarine Telegraphs, by a union of the Gutta-Percha Company with the firm This was a triumph worthy to be honored in the way that Englishmen love, by a little festivity; and as it chanced to be now ten years since Mr. Field had embarked in the enterprise, the pleasant thought occurred to him of getting his friends together to celebrate the anniversary. Accordingly, on the fifteenth of March, he invited them to dine together at the Buckingham Palace Hotel. It was a joyous occasion, and called forth the usual amount of toasts and speeches. Of the latter, those of Mr. Adams, the American Minister, and of John Bright, were widely copied in the United States. The next day was the annual meeting of the Atlantic Telegraph Company, when the Chairman, the Right Hon. James Stuart Wortley, thus referred to the gathering of the night before:
This was a congratulation on an escape from death, for their cherished scheme had just passed through a critical period of its history. The enterprise had been in great danger of abandonment—at least for years, a peril from which it had been rescued only by the most prompt and vigorous effort. Thus after infinite toil, the wreck of old disasters was cleared away, and the mighty task begun anew. The works of the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company were the largest in the world, and all their resources were now put in requisition. Never did greater care preside over a public enterprise. It was a case in which the motive of interest was seconded or overborne by pride and ambition. A cable was to be made to span the Atlantic Ocean, and to join the hemispheres; and they were determined to produce a work that should be as nearly perfect as human skill could make it. The Scientific Committee, that had so long investigated the subject, had approved a particular form of cable, as "the one most calculated to insure success in the present state of our experimental knowledge respecting deep-sea cables," but at the same time recommended the utmost vigilance at every stage of the manufacture. These precautions deserve to be noted, as showing with what jealous care science
This was higher by forty degrees than the temperature of the Atlantic. The insulation is improved by cold; so that, if it remained perfect in this warm water, it could not fail in the icy depths of the ocean. OLD ATLANTIC CABLE, 1858. NEW ATLANTIC CABLE, 1865. After passing through such elaborate tests, all will be glad to see the final product of so much care and skill. As the long line begins to reel off from the great wheels and drums, we may examine it in its completed and more perfect form. It is only necessary to compare it with the cable laid in 1858, to show its immense superiority. A glance at the two as they appear on the preceding page will show that the cable had grown since first it was planted in the ocean, as if it were a living product of the sea. This growth had been in every part, from core to circumference. First, the central copper wire, which was the spinal cord, the nerve along which the centre current was to run, was nearly three times as large as before. Prof. Thomson had long seen that this was a condition of success. While joining heartily in the attempts of 1857-58, he felt that an error was committed in the smallness of the cable; that the copper conductors and the gutta-percha covering should both be much larger. The old conductor was a strand consisting of seven fine wires, six laid round one, and weighed only one hundred and seven pounds to the mile. The new was But a conductor ever so perfect, with insulation complete, was useless without proper external protection, to guard it against the dangers which must attend the long and difficult process of laying it across the ocean. The old cable had broken a number of times. The new must be made stronger. To this end it was incased with ten solid wires of the best iron, or rather, of a soft steel, like that used in the making of Whitworth's cannon. This made the cable much heavier than before. The old cable weighed but twenty cwt. to the mile, while the new one reached thirty-five cwt. and three quarters. But mere size and weight were nothing, except as they indicated increased strength. This was secured, not only by the larger iron wires, but by a further coating of rope. By this combination of rope and iron, a cable was secured two and a half times as strong as the old—the breaking strain of the former having been three tons five cwt., and of the latter seven tons and fifteen cwt. Or, to put it in another form, the contract strain of the former was less than five times its own weight per mile in water; so that if the cable had been laid in some parts of the Atlantic, where the ocean is more than five miles deep, it would have broken under the enormous strain. But the contract strain of the new cable was equal to eleven times its weight per mile in water, which, as the greatest depth of water to be passed was but two and a half miles, rendered the cable more than four times as strong as was required. This great chain which was to bind the sea was to be 2,300 nautical miles long, or nearly 2,700 statute miles! But where could this enormous bulk be stowed? Its weight would sink the Spanish Armada. In 1858, the cable loaded down two of the largest ships of war in the world, the Niagara and the Agamemnon. Yet now one much larger and bulkier was to be taken on board. This might have proved a serious embarrassment, but that a few years before there had been built in England a ship of enormous proportions. The Great Eastern, whose iron walls had been reared by the genius of Brunel, had been for ten years waiting for "a mission." As a specimen of marine architecture she was perfect. She walked the Hugest of all God's works could find nothing worthy of her greatness. Here then was the vessel to receive the Atlantic cable. Seeing her fitness for the purpose, a few of the gentlemen who were active in reviving the Atlantic Telegraph combined to purchase her, as she was about to be sold. One of them went down with all speed to Liverpool, and the next day telegraphed that the big ship was theirs. The new owners at once put her at the service of the Atlantic Company, with the express agreement that any compensation for her use should depend on the success of the expedition. Next to the good fortune of finding such a ship ready to their hands, was that of finding an officer worthy to command her. Captain James Anderson, of the China, one of the Cunard steamers, had long been known to the travelling public, both of England and America, and no one ever crossed the sea with him without the strongest feeling of respect for his manly The work now went on with speed. The wheels began to hum, and the great drums to reel off that line which, considering the distance it was to span, was hardly to be measured by miles, but rather by degrees of the earth's surface. Mere figures give but a vague impression of vast spaces. But it is a curious fact, ascertained by an exact computation, that if all the wires of copper and of iron, with the layers that made up the core and the outer covering, and the strands of yarn that were twisted into this one knotted sea-cable, were placed end to end, the whole length would reach from the earth to the moon! As it came from the works in its completed state, it was plunged in water, to make it familiar with the element which was to be its future home. In the yards of the Company stood eight large tanks, which could hold each a hundred and forty miles. Here the cable was coiled to "hibernate," till it should be wanted for use the coming spring. Seeing the work thus well under way, with no chance of another disastrous check, Mr. Field left England with heart at rest, and returned to America for the winter. But the first days of spring saw him again on the Atlantic. He reached England on the eighteenth of March. His visit was more satisfactory than a year before. The work was now well advanced. It was a goodly sight to go down to Morden Wharf at Greenwich, and see the huge machinery in motion, spinning off the leagues of deep-sea line. The triumph apparently was near at hand. It seemed indeed a predestined thing that the cable should finally be laid in the year of grace 1865—the end for which he had so faithfully toiled since 1858—seven weary years—as long as Jacob served for Rachel! But, less fortunate than Jacob, he was doomed to one more disappointment. At present, however, all looked well, and he could not but regard the prospect with satisfaction. Having no more drudgery of raising money, he had now a few weeks' leisure to take a voyage up the He returned to England about the first of May to find the work nearly completed. The cable was almost done, and a large part of it was already coiled on board the ship. This was an operation of much interest, which deserves to be described. The manufacture had begun on the first of September, and had gone on for eight months without ceasing, the works turning out fourteen miles a day even during the short days of winter. As the spring advanced, and the days grew longer, the amount was of course much increased. But by the last of January they had already accumulated about nine hundred miles of completed cable, when began the long and tedious work of transferring This was an operation which could not be done with speed. With all the men who could be employed, they coiled on board only about two miles an hour, or twenty miles a day—at which rate it would take some five months. The work began on the nineteenth of January, early in the morning, and continued till June, before all was safely stowed on board. The Great Eastern herself had been fitted up to receive her enormous burden. It was an object to stow the cable in as few coils as possible. Yet it could not be all piled in one mass. Such a dead weight in the centre of the ship would cause her to roll fearfully. If coiled in one circle, it was computed that it would nearly fill Astley's theatre from the floor of the circus to the roof—making a pile fifty-eight feet wide Thus with her spacious chambers prepared for the reception of her guest, the Great Eastern opened her doors to take in the Atlantic cable; and long as it was, and wide and high the space it filled, it found ample verge and room within her capacious sides. Indeed, it was the wonder of all who beheld it, how, like a monster of the sea, she devoured all that other ships could bring. The Iris and the Amethyst came up time after time and disgorged their iron contents. Yet this leviathan swallowed ship-load after ship-load, as if she could never be satisfied. A writer who visited her when the cable was nearly all on board, was at a loss to find it. He looked along the deck, from stem to stern, but not a sign of it appeared. How he searched, and how the wonder grew, he tells in a published letter. After describing his approach to the ship, and climbing up her sides and his survey of her deck, he proceeds:
As the work approached completion, public interest revived in the stupendous undertaking, and crowds of wonder-seekers came down from London to see the preparations for the expedition. Even if not admitted on board, they found a satisfaction in sailing round the great ship, in whose mighty bosom was coiled this huge sea-serpent. It had also many distinguished visitors. Among others, the Prince of Wales came to see the ocean girdle which was to link the British islands with his future dominions beyond the sea. At length, on the twenty-ninth of May, almost the last day of Spring, the manufacture of the cable was finished. The machines which for eight months had been in a constant whirl, made their last round. The tinkling of a bell announced that the machinery was empty, and the mighty work stood completed. It only remained that it should be got on board, and the ship prepared for her voyage. Hundreds of busy hands were at work without ceasing, and yet it was six weeks before she was ready to put to sea. It may well be believed that it was no small affair to equip such an expedition. Beside the enormous burden of the cable itself, the Great Eastern had to take on board seven or eight thousand tons of coal, enough for a fleet, to feed her fires. Then she carried about five hundred men, for whom she had to make As the time of departure drew near, public curiosity was excited, and there was an extraordinary desire to witness the approaching attempt. The Company was besieged by applications from all quarters for permission to accompany the expedition. Had these requests been granted, on the scale asked, even the large dimensions of the Great Eastern could hardly have been sufficient for the crowds on board. The demand was most pressing for places for newspaper correspondents. These came not only from England, but from France and America. Almost every journal in London claimed the privilege of being represented. The Whether the Managers erred in this or not, it should be said that they applied the same inexorable rule to themselves—even Directors of the Company being excluded, unless they had some special business on board. It should be borne in mind that the expedition was not under the control of the Atlantic Telegraph Company at all, but of the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company, which had undertaken the work in fulfilment of a contract with the former Company to manufacture and lay down a cable across the Atlantic, in which it assumed the whole responsibility, not only making the cable, but chartering the ship and appointing the officers, and sending its own engineers to lay it down. Of course it had an enormous stake in the result. Hence it felt, not only authorized, but bound, to organize the expedition solely with reference to success. It was not a voyage of pleasure, but for business; for the accomplishment of a great and most difficult undertaking. Hence it was right that Thus the whole business was in the hands of the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company. It had its own officers to man the expedition—the captain and crew to sail the ship—its engineers to lay the cable—and its electricians to test it. Even the eminent electricians, Professor Thomson and Mr. Varley, who were on board in the service of the Atlantic Telegraph Company, were not allowed to interfere, nor even to give advice unless it were asked for in writing, and then it was to be given in writing. Their office was only to test the cable when laid, to pass So rigorous were the rules which governed this memorable voyage. The whole enterprise was organized as completely as a naval expedition. Every man had his place. As when a ship is going into battle, everybody is sent below that has not some business on deck, so it is not strange that in such a critical enterprise they did not want a host of supernumeraries on board. Yet the Company was not unmindful of the anxiety of the public for news, and since it could not give a place to many correspondents, it engaged one, and that the best—W. H. Russell, LL.D., the well-known correspondent of the London Times in the Crimea and in India. This brilliant writer was engaged to accompany the expedition—not to praise without discrimination, but to report events faithfully from day to day. He was accompanied by two artists, Mr. O'Neill and Mr. Dudley, to illustrate the scenes of the voyage. Thus the Company made every provision to furnish information and even entertainment to the public. Several of these gentlemen afterward wrote accounts for different magazines—Blackwood, Cornhill, and Macmillan's. Their different reports, and especially the volume of Dr. Russell, which combines the accuracy and minuteness of a diary kept from day to day, with brilliant descriptions, set off by illustrations But if the public at large were very properly excluded, the organization on board was perfect and complete. At the head was Captain Anderson, of whom we have already spoken. As his duties would be manifold and increasing, he had requested the aid of an assistant commander, and Captain Moriarty, R. N., who had been in the Agamemnon in 1858, was permitted by the Admiralty to accompany the ship, and to give the invaluable aid of his experience and skill. The government also generously granted two ships of war, the Sphinx and the Terrible, to attend the Great Eastern. Thus the whole equipment of the expedition was English. Of the five hundred men on board the Great Eastern, there was but one American, and that was Mr. Field. The engineering department was under charge of Mr. (now Sir) Samuel Canning, who, as the representative of the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company, was chief in command of all matters relating to laying the cable. For this responsible position no better man could have been chosen. Before the voyage was ended, he had ample opportunity to show his resources. He was ably seconded by Mr. Henry Clifford. Both these gentlemen had been on board the The electrical department was under charge of Mr. De Sauty, who had had long experience in submarine telegraphs, and who was aided by an efficient corps of assistants. Professor Thomson and Mr. Varley, as we have said, were there to examine and report for the Atlantic Company. All these gentlemen had been unceasing in their tests of the cable in every form, both while in the process of manufacture and after it was coiled in the Great Eastern. The result of their repeated tests was to demonstrate that the cable was many times more perfect than the contract required. With such marvellous delicacy did they test the current of electricity sent through it, that it was determined that of one thousand parts, over nine hundred and ninety-nine came out at the other end! To complete this organization and equipment caused such delays as excited the impatience of all on board. But at length, when midsummer had fully come—at noon of Saturday, July fifteenth—the song of the sailors sounded the chant du dÉpart. The Great Eastern Thus they passed round to the coast of Ireland, to that Valentia Bay where, eight years before, the Earl of Carlisle gave his benediction on the departure of The point of landing had been changed from Valentia harbor five or six miles to Foilhommerum Bay, a wild spot where huge cliffs hang over the waves that here come rolling in from the Atlantic. On the top, an old tower of the time of Cromwell tells of the bloody days of England's great civil war. It is now but a mossy ruin. Here the peasants who flocked in from the country pitched their booths on the green sward, and looked down from the dizzy heights on the boats dancing in the bay below. At the foot of the cliff, a soft, sandy beach forms a bed for the cable, and here, as it issues from the sea, it is led up a channel which had been cut for it in the rocks. As the shore end was very massive and unwieldy, it could not be laid except in good weather; and as the sea was now rough, the Great Eastern withdrew to Bantry Bay, to be out of the way of the storms which sometimes break with fury on this rock-bound coast. On Saturday this preliminary work was completed, the heavy shore end was carried from the deck of the Caroline across a bridge of boats to the beach, and hauled up the cliffs amid the shouts of the people. When once it was made fast to the rocks, the little steamer began to move, and the huge coil slowly unwound, Thus, so many had been the delays of the past week, that it had come on to Sunday before the Great Eastern was ready to begin her voyage. This—which some might count a desecration of the holy day—the sailors rather accepted as a good omen. Had the shore end been laid forty-eight hours sooner, the voyage might have begun on Friday, which sailors, who are proverbially superstitious, would have thought an unlucky beginning. But Sunday, in their esteem, is a good day. They like, when a ship is moving out of sight of land, that the last sound from the shore should be the blessed Sabbath bells. If that sacred chime were not heard to-day, at least a Sabbath peace rested on sea and sky. It was a calm summer's evening. The sun was just sinking in the waves, as In other respects the day was well chosen. It was the twenty-third of July. From the beginning, Captain Anderson had wished to sail on the twenty-third of June, or the twenty-second of July, so as to have the full moon on the American coast. He desired also to take advantage of the westerly winds which prevail at that season, for in going against the wind the Great Eastern was steady as a rock. Every expectation was realized. To the big ship the ocean was as an inland lake. The paying-out machinery—the product of so much study and skill—worked beautifully, and as the ship increased her speed, the cable glided into the water with such ease that it seemed but a holiday affair to carry it across to yonder Yet be not too confident. But a few hours had passed before the booming of a gun awoke all on board with the heavy tidings of disaster. The morning breaks early in those high latitudes, and by four o'clock all were on deck, with anxious looks inquiring for the cause of alarm. The ship was lying still, as if her voyage had already come to an end, and electricians, with troubled countenances, were passing in and out of the testing-room, which, as it was always kept darkened, looked like a sick-chamber where some royal patient lay trembling between life and death. The method used by the electricians to discover a fault is one of such delicacy and beauty as shows the marvellous perfection of the instruments which science employs to learn the secrets of nature. The galvanometer is an invention of Professor Thomson, by which "a ray of light reflected from a tiny mirror suspended to a magnet travels along a scale, and indicates the resistance to the passage of the current through the cable by the deflection of the magnet, which is marked by the course of this speck of light. If the light of the mirror travels beyond the index, or out of bounds, an escape of the current is taking place, and what is technically called a fault has occurred." Such was Fortunately it was not a fatal injury. It did not prevent signalling through the cable, and a message was at once sent back to the shore, giving notice of the check that had been received. But the electric current did not flow freely. There was a leak at some point of the line which it would not be prudent to pass over. They were now seventy-three miles from shore, having run out eighty-four miles of cable. The tests of the electricians indicated the fault to be ten or a dozen miles from the stern of the ship. The only safe course was to go back and get this on board, and cut out the defective portion. It was a most ungrateful operation thus to be undoing their own work, but there was no help for it. Such accidents had been anticipated, and before the Great Eastern left England, she had been provided with machinery to be used in case of necessity for picking up the cable. But this proved rather an unwieldy affair. It was at the bow, and as the paying-out machine was at the stern, the ship had to be got round, and the cable, which must first be cut, had to be transferred from one end to the other. This was not an easy matter. The Great Eastern was an eighth of a mile long, and to carry the cable along her sides for But at length the ship's head was brought round, and the end of the cable lifted over the bow, and grasped by the pulling-in machine, and the engine began to puff with the labor of raising the cable from the depths of the ocean. Fortunately they were only in four or five hundred fathoms water, so that the strain was not great. But the engine worked poorly, and the operation was very slow. With the best they could do, it was impossible to raise more than a mile an hour! But patience and courage, though it should take all day and all night! But the vexatious delay was over at last, and the stately ship, once more turning to the West, moved ahead with a steady composure, as if no petty trouble could vex her tranquil mind. Throughout the voyage the behavior of the ship was the admiration of all on board. While her consorts on either side were pitched about at the mercy of the waves, she moved forward with a grave demeanor, as if conscious of her mission, or as if eager to unburden her mighty heart, to throw overboard the great mystery that was coiled up within her, and to cast her burden on the sea. The electricians, too, were elated, and with reason, at the perfection of the cable as demonstrated by every hour's experience. At intervals of thirty minutes, day and night, tests were passed from ship to shore, All now went well till Saturday, the twenty-ninth, when a little after noon there was again a cry from the ship, as if once more the cable were wounded and in pain. This time the fault was more serious than before. The electricians looked very grave, for they had struck "dead earth," that is, the insulation was completely destroyed, and the electric current was escaping into the sea. As the fault had gone overboard, it was necessary to reverse their course, and haul in till the defective part was brought up from the bottom. This time it was more difficult, for they were in water two miles deep. Still the cable yielded slowly to the iron hands that drew it upward; and after working all the afternoon, about ten o'clock at night they got the fault on board. The wounded limb was at once amputated, and joining the parts that were whole, the cable was made new and strong again. Thus ended a day of anxiety. The next morning, which was the second Sabbath at sea, was welcomed with a grateful feeling after the suspense of the last twenty-four hours. On Monday, the miles of cable that had been hauled up, and which were lying in huge piles upon the deck, were subjected to a rigid examination, to find out But accident or villainy, it was defeated this time, and the Great Eastern proudly continued her voyage. Not the slightest check interrupted their progress for the next three days, during which they passed over five hundred miles of ocean. It was now they enjoyed their greatest triumph. They were in the middle of the Atlantic, and thus far the voyage had been a complete success. The ship seemed as if made by Heaven to accomplish this great work of civilization. The paying-out apparatus was a piece of mechanism to excite the enthusiasm of an engineer, so smoothly did its well-oiled wheels run. The strain never exceeded fourteen hundred-weight, even in the greatest depths of the Atlantic. And as for the cable itself, it seemed to come as near perfection as it was possible to attain. As before, the insulation was greatly improved by submergence in the ocean. With every lengthening league it grew better and better. It seems almost beyond belief, yet the fact is fully attested that, when in the middle of the ocean, the communication was so perfect that they could tell at Valentia every time the But Wednesday brought a sudden termination of their hopes. They had run out about twelve hundred miles of cable, and were now within six hundred miles of Newfoundland. Two days more would have made them safe, as it would have brought them into the shallow waters of the coast. Thus it was when least expected that disaster came. The record of that fatal day may be given in few words. In the morning, while Mr. Field was keeping watch in the tank, with the same gang of men who had been there when the trouble occurred before, a grating sound was heard, as if a piece of wire had caught in the machinery, and word was passed up to the deck to look out for it; but the caution seems not to have been heard, and it passed over the stern of the ship. Soon after a report came from the testing-room of "another fault." It was not a bad one, since it did not prevent communication with land; and much anxiety might have been saved had a This new fault, though it was annoying, did not create alarm, for they had been accustomed to such things, and regarded them only as the natural incidents of the voyage. Had the apparatus for pulling in been complete, it could not have delayed them more than a few hours. But this had been the weak point of the arrangements from the beginning—the bÊte noire of the expedition. The only motive power was a little donkey engine, (rightly named,) which puffed and wheezed as if it had the asthma. This was now put in requisition, but soon gave out for want of more steam. While waiting for this a breeze sprang up, which caused the Great Eastern to drift over the cable, by which it was badly chafed, so that when it was hauled in, as the injured part was coming over the bows and was almost within grasp, suddenly it broke and plunged into the sea! It came without a moment's warning. So unexpected was such a catastrophe, that the gentlemen had At last it had come—the calamity which all had feared, yet that seemed so far away only a few hours before. Yet there it was—the ragged end on board, torn and bleeding, the other lying far down in its ocean grave. In America, of course, nothing could be known of the fate of the expedition till its arrival on our shores. But in England its progress was reported from day to day, and as the success up to this point had raised the hopes of all to the highest pitch, the sudden loss of communication with the ship was a heavy blow
Said the Times:
But these explanations, so consoling to anxious friends on land, did not comfort those on board the Great Eastern. They knew, alas! that the cable was at the bottom of the ocean, and the only question was, if any thing could be done to recover it. Now began a work of which there had been no example in the annals of the sea. The intrepid Canning declared his purpose to grapple for the cable! The proposal seemed wild, dictated by the frenzy of despair. Yet he had fished in deep waters before. He had laid his hand on the bottom of the Mediterranean, but that was a shallow lake compared with the depths into which the Atlantic cable had descended. The ocean is here two and a half miles deep. It was as if an Alpine hunter stood on the summit of Mont Blanc and cast a line into the vale of Chamouni. Yet who shall put bounds to human courage? The expedition The ship was now a dozen miles or so from the place of accident. The cable had broken a little after noon, when the sun was shining clear, so that Captains Anderson and Moriarty had just obtained a perfect observation, from which they could tell, within half a
Having thus caught the cable, they had good hopes of getting it again, their confidence increasing with every hundred fathoms brought on board. For hours the work went on. They had raised it seven hundred fathoms—or three quarters of a mile—from the bottom, when an iron swivel gave way, and the cable once more fell back into the sea, carrying with it nearly two miles of rope. The first attempt had failed, but the fact that they had unmistakably caught the prize gave them courage for a second. Preparations were at once begun, but fogs came on and delayed the attempt till Monday, when it was repeated. The grapnel caught again. It was late in the afternoon when it got its hold, and the work of pulling in was kept up all night. But as the sea was calm and the moon shining brightly, all joined in it with spirit, feeling elated with the hope of triumph on the morrow. That was not to be; but each attempt seemed to come nearer and nearer to victory. This time the These experiments were fast using up the wire rope, and every expedient had to be resorted to, to piece it out and to give it strength. Each shackle and swivel was replaced by new bolts, and the capstan was increased four feet in diameter, by being belted with enormous plates of iron, to wind the rope around it, if the picking-up machinery should fail. This gave full work to all the mechanics on board. The ship was turned into a very cave of Vulcan, presenting at night a scene which might well take the eye of an artist, and which Russell thus describes:
While preparing for a third attempt, the ship had been drifting about, sometimes to a distance of thirty or forty miles, but it had marked the course where the cable lay by two buoys, thrown over about ten miles apart, each bearing a flag which might be seen at a distance, and so easily came back to the spot. On Thursday morning all was ready, and the line was cast as before, but after some hours of drifting, it was evident that the ship had passed over the cable without grappling. The line was hauled in, and the reason at once appeared. One of the flukes had caught in the chain, so that it could not strike its teeth into the bottom. This was cleared away, and the rope prepared for a fourth and final attempt. It was at noon of Friday that the grapnel went overboard for the last time. By four o'clock it had caught, and the work of hauling-in recommenced. Again the cable was brought up nearly eight hundred fathoms, when the rope broke, carrying down two miles of its Their resources were exhausted. For nine days and nights, for the work never stopped for light or darkness, had the great ship kept moving round and round like some mighty bird of the sea, with her eye fixed on the place where her treasure had gone down, and striving to wrest it from the hand of the spoiler. Three times had they grasped the prize, and each time failed to recover it, only for want of ropes strong enough to bring it on board. The cable itself never broke. This proof of its strength was a good omen for future success. But for the present all was over. The attempt must be abandoned for the year 1865, but not for ever; and with this purpose in her constant mind, the Great Eastern swung sullenly around, and turned her imperial head toward England, like a warrior retiring from the field—not victorious, nor yet defeated and despairing, but with her battle-flag still flying, and resolved once more to attempt the conquest of the sea. FOOTNOTES:"I cannot tell you how I have felt since our success. It is only seventeen months since I first walked up to the top of the paddle-box of this ship at Sheerness, upon a dark, rainy night—reviewed my past career in my mind, and tried to look into the future, to see what I had undertaken, and realize if possible what this new step would develop. I cannot say I believed much in cables; I rather think I did not; but I did believe Mr. Field was an earnest man, of great force of character, and working under a strong conviction that what he was attempting was thoroughly practicable; and I knew enough of the names with which he had associated himself in the enterprise to feel that it was a real, true, honest effort, worthy of all the energy and application of one's manhood; and come what might in the future, I resolved to do my very utmost, and to do nothing else until it was over. More completely however than my resolve foreshadowed, I dropped inch by inch, or step by step, into the work, until I had no mind, no soul, no sleep, that was not tinged with cable. In a word I accuse Mr. Field of having dragged me into a vortex, that I could not get out of, and did not wish to try—and the sum total of all this is, to lay a thread across an ocean! Dr. Russell compared it to an elephant stretching a cobweb, and there lay its very danger: the more you multiply the mechanism, the more you increase the risk." |