Naturally, no further telegraphic messages could be exchanged between the two countries.
Nothing daunted, the projectors started afresh; made another cable; and put that down. This time they met with good success; and since 1851 England and France have talked in confidential whispers below the Channel.
Many more cables under the sea were laid in different places with success. But all these were short ones.
A great scheme, dimly foretold in 1842 by one far-sighted American, was stirring. Why should not the New World be united to the Old, even as Great Britain was united to the Continent? Why not bind Europe and America together by cables beneath the Ocean?
Not twenty or forty or sixty miles would this require, but two thousand miles of cable. And in any part of those two thousand miles, one slight break, one little flaw, would undo the whole. The plan meant thousands of pounds risked, with perhaps no return.
Yet it was persevered in. Before the close of 1857, that year of Indian Mutiny horrors, the first attempt was made. Four hundred miles of cable slid safely down, and lay upon the ocean-bed. Then as it ran out from the ship, it snapped. That was a failure.
Next year another attempt was made. Two ships, each bearing half of the great coil, came together in the middle of the Atlantic, and “spliced” the ends. After which they parted, one going east, one going west, each laying its own share. But again the cable broke.
Enough remained on hand to supply the place of the lost length. A third effort followed quickly. For a while success seemed to crown perseverance. The whole cable was safely down; and messages were exchanged. Whispers from the Old World to the New went under two thousand miles of ocean, and answers came back. Then the wire ceased to speak. In some manner, connection was severed.
Time passed, and for a space no more was done. But in 1864 the Great Eastern started, carrying the whole of a new and much stronger cable—more than two thousand two hundred miles long; and of so solid a make that each mile of it weighed three thousand pounds.
Once again disappointment lay ahead. More than half the task had been accomplished, when the cable broke anew, the lower end as usual vanishing.