Many days the great ship hovered round, hunting for that lost line; but she had to give up the quest, and to go home. A year later, however, the search was resumed; and the cable, lying quietly upon the ocean-bed more than two miles below, was found and pulled up by powerful grapnels.
Not yet was man beaten in his contest with the Ocean. It takes a good deal of beating to make the Anglo-Saxon give in. Wind and wave, depth and distance, all were against him; but he went on. The plan had to be carried out. He meant to see this thing through. He had made up his mind to have his verbal under-sea intercourse, between Continent and Continent.
And at last he had his way. A new cable was manufactured; and this time, not only was it laid safely, but it held good.
Side by side with the new was laid also the old lost cable, which had been fished up from the deep. So a double line of connection existed between Great Britain and her Daughter-land across the Atlantic.
That aim fulfilled, after so much of failure and discouragement, other cables were put down in many other parts of the world. Beneath the sea in all directions they lie, joining countries widely separated.
A year or two ago it was reckoned that the full extent of all submarine cables in the world had already reached a grand total of about two hundred thousand miles. Not much more will bring it to a length which might span the distance between Earth and Moon.
Lately a splendid new scheme has come up, and has been adopted. This is—to unite the entire British Empire by one vast “All-British” telegraphic system. As is the nervous system to a man, so will be the said telegraphic system to the Empire.
At present many telegrams have to be sent to outlying parts through foreign dominions—which is much as though a man’s brain should have to send messages to his fingers through another man’s arm. But when once this scheme has become a reality, the Mother-land will be able to convey, under the broadest ocean-reaches, to any of her Children in distant parts, her requests, her warnings, her sympathy, her secrets, her congratulations, without fear of being heard by outsiders; without risk of having her utterances stopped by perhaps “unfriendly” hands, at some critical moment.
In this vast plan the chief cable will cover a distance of nearly nine thousand miles; and that will include a single stretch from Vancouver to Fanning Island, more than half as long again as the wire between Ireland and the United States, or about three thousand five hundred miles.
No surprise need be felt at the frequent breaking of cables, strong though they may be.