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1
281
Heroes of the Telegraph
·
John Munro
80
Ten
years
before,
Mr.
Marc
Isambard
Brunel,
the
architect
of
the
Great
Eastern,
had
taken
Mr.
Field
to
Blackwall,
where
the
leviathan
was
lying,
and
said
to
him,
'There
is
the
ship
to
lay
the
Atlantic
cable.'
She
was
now
purchased
to
fulfil
the
mission.
Her
immense
hull
was
fitted
with
three
iron
tanks
for
the
reception
of
2,300
miles
of
cable,
and
her
decks
furnished
with
the
paying-out
gear.
Captain
(now
Sir)
James
Anderson,
of
the
Cunard
steamer
China,
a
thorough
seaman,
was
appointed
to
the
command,
with
Captain
Moriarty,
R.N.,
as
chief
navigating
officer.
Mr.
(afterwards
Sir)
Samuel
Canning
was
engineer
for
the
contractors,
the
Telegraph
Construction
and
Maintenance
Company,
and
Mr.
de
Sauty
their
electrician;
Professor
Thomson
and
Mr.
Cromwell
Fleetwood
Varley
were
the
electricians
for
the
Atlantic
Telegraph
Company.
The
Press
was
ably
represented
by
Dr.
W.
H.
Russell,
correspondent
of
the
TIMES.
The
Great
Eastern
took
on
board
seven
or
eight
thousand
tons
of
coal
to
feed
her
fires,
a
prodigious
quantity
of
stores,
and
a
multitude
of
live
stock
which
turned
her
decks
into
a
farmyard.
Her
crew
all
told
numbered
500
men.
At
noon
on
Saturday,
July
15,
1865,
the
Great
Eastern
left
the
Nore
for
Foilhommerum
Bay,
Valentia
Island,
where
the
shore
end
was
laid
by
the
Caroline.
At
5.30
p.m.
on
Sunday,
July
23,
amidst
the
firing
of
cannon
and
the
cheers
of
the
telegraph
fleet,
she
started
on
her
voyage
at
a
speed
of
about
four
knots
an
hour.
The
weather
was
fine,
and
all
went
well
until
next
morning
early,
when
the
boom
of
a
gun
signalled
that
a
fault
had
broken
out
in
the
cable.
It
turned
out
that
a
splinter
of
iron
wire
had
penetrated
the
core.
More
faults
of
the
kind
were
discovered,
and
as
they
always
happened
in
the
same
watch,
there
was
a
suspicion
of
foul
play.
In
repairing
one
of
these
on
July
31,
after
1,062
miles
had
been
payed
out,
the
cable
snapped
near
the
stern
of
the
ship,
and
the
end
was
lost.
'All
is
over,'
quietly
observed
Mr.
Canning;
and
though
spirited
attempts
were
made
to
grapple
the
sunken
line
in
two
miles
of
water,
they
failed
to
recover
it.
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