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378
The Story of the Atlantic Telegraph
·
Henry M. Field
141
The
reshipping
of
the
cable
at
Plymouth
occupied
the
whole
month
of
April
and
part
of
May.
Some
changes
were
made
in
the
mode
adopted,
it
being
coiled
around
large
cones.
The
work
was
done
as
before,
by
a
hundred
and
sixty
men
detailed
for
the
purpose,
of
whom
one
fourth
were
the
workmen
of
the
Company,
and
the
rest
sailors
who
had
volunteered
for
the
duty.
These
were
divided
into
gangs
of
forty,
that
relieved
each
other,
by
which
the
work
went
on
day
and
night.
In
this
way
they
coiled
about
thirty
miles
in
the
twenty-four
hours.
Owing
to
the
increased
length
of
cable,
and
the
greater
care
in
coiling,
it
took
a
longer
time
than
the
year
before.
The
whole
was
completed
about
the
middle
of
May.
There
was
then
in
all,
on
board
the
two
ships,
a
little
over
three
thousand
statute
miles.
This
included,
besides
seven
hundred
miles
of
new
cable,
thirty-nine
miles
of
that
lost
the
year
before,
which
had
been
recovered
by
the
Company,
and
a
few
miles
of
condemned
cable
from
Greenwich,
which
was
put
on
board
for
experiments.
The
shipment
being
thus
complete,
and
the
paying-out
machines
in
position,
the
ships
were
ready
to
make
a
trial
trip,
preparatory
to
their
final
departure.
For
this
purpose
the
telegraphic
squadron
sailed
from
Plymouth
on
Saturday,
the
twenty-ninth
of
May,
and
bore
southward
two
or
three
hundred
miles,
till
the
green
color
of
the
sea
changing
to
a
deep
blue,
showed
that
they
had
reached
the
great
depths
of
the
ocean.
They
were
now
in
the
waters
of
the
Bay
of
Biscay,
where
the
soundings
were
over
twenty-five
hundred
fathoms.
Here
the
Niagara
and
the
Agamemnon
were
connected
by
a
hawser,
being
about
a
quarter
of
a
mile
apart.
The
cable
was
then
passed
from
one
to
the
other,
and
a
series
of
experiments
begun,
designed
to
test
both
the
strength
of
the
cable
and
the
working
of
the
machinery.
Two
miles
of
the
cable
were
paid
out,
when
it
parted.
This
would
have
seemed
a
bad
sign,
had
it
been
any
other
part
of
the
cable
than
that
which
was
known
to
be
imperfect
and
had
long
since
been
condemned.
The
next
day
three
miles
were
paid
out.
This,
too,
was
broken,
but
only
when
they
tried
to
haul
it
in,
and
under
a
pressure
of
several
tons.
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