The Story of the Atlantic Telegraph

All day Sunday the same favoring fortune continued; and when the officers, who could be spared from the deck, met in the cabin, and Captain Hudson read the service, it was with subdued voices and grateful hearts they responded to the prayers to Him who spreadeth out the heavens, and ruleth the raging of the sea. On Monday they were over two hundred miles at sea. They had got far beyond the shallow waters off the coast. They had passed over the submarine mountain which figures on the charts of Dayman and Berryman, and where Mr. Bright's log gives a descent from five hundred and fifty to seventeen hundred and fifty fathoms within eight miles! Then they came to the deeper waters of the Atlantic, where the cable sank to the awful depth of two thousand fathoms. Still the iron cord buried itself in the waves, and every instant the flash of light in the darkened telegraph room told of the passage of the electric current. But Monday evening, about nine o'clock, occurred a mysterious interruption, which staggered all on board. Suddenly the electrical continuity was lost. The cable was not broken, but it ceased to work. Here was a mystery. De Sauty tried it, and Professor Morse tried it. But neither could make it work. It seemed that all was over. The electricians gave it up, and the engineers were preparing to cut the cable, and to endeavor to wind it in, when suddenly the electricity came back again. This made the mystery greater than ever. It had been interrupted for two hours and a half. This was a phenomenon which has never been explained. Professor Morse was of opinion that the cable, in getting off the wheels, had been strained so as to open the gutta-percha, and thus destroy the insulation. If this be the true explanation, it would seem that on reaching the bottom the seam had closed, and thus the continuity had been restored. But it was certainly an untoward incident, which "cast ominous conjecture on the whole success," as it seemed to indicate that there were at the bottom of the sea causes which were wholly unknown and against which it was impossible to provide.