The Story of the Atlantic Telegraph

CHAPTER XI. EXCITEMENT IN AMERICA. Whoever shall write the history of popular enthusiasms, must give a large space to the Atlantic Telegraph. Never did the tidings of any great achievement--whether in peace or war--more truly electrify a nation. No doubt, the impression was the greater because it took the country by surprise. Had the attempt succeeded in June, it would have found a people prepared for it. But the failure of the first expedition, added to that of the previous year, settled the fate of the enterprise in the minds of the public. It was a hopeless undertaking; and its projectors shared the usual lot of those who conceive vast designs, and venture on great enterprises, which are not successful, to be regarded with a mixture of derision and pity. Such was the temper of the public mind, when at noon of Thursday, the fifth of August, the following despatch was received: "United States Frigate Niagara, Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, August 5, 1858. "To the Associated Press, New York: "The Atlantic Telegraph fleet sailed from Queenstown, Ireland, Saturday, July seventeenth, and met in mid-ocean Wednesday, July twenty-eighth. Made the splice at one P.M., Thursday, the twenty-ninth, and separated--the Agamemnon and Valorous, bound to Valentia, Ireland; the Niagara and Gorgon, for this place, where they arrived yesterday, and this morning the end of the cable will be landed. "It is one thousand six hundred and ninety-six nautical, or one thousand nine hundred and fifty statute, miles from the Telegraph House at the head of Valentia harbor to the Telegraph House at the Bay of Bulls, Trinity Bay, and for more than two thirds of this distance the water is over two miles in depth. The cable has been paid out from the Agamemnon at about the same speed as from the Niagara. The electric signals sent and received through the whole cable are perfect.