This table shows the speed of the ship to have been exactly according to the “running time” fixed before she left England. On the last voyage it was thought that she had once or twice run too fast, and thus exposed the cable to danger. It was therefore decided to go slowly but surely. Holding her back to this moderate pace, her average speed from the time the splice was made until they saw land was a little less than five nautical miles an hour, while the cable was paid out at an average of not quite five and half miles. Thus the total slack was about eleven per cent., showing that the cable was laid almost in a straight line, allowing for the swells and hollows at the bottom of the sea. “Friday, July 27.—Shortly after 2 p.m. yesterday two ships, which were soon made out to be steamers, were seen to the westward; and the Terrible, steaming on ahead, in about an hour signalled to us that H.M.S. Niger was one of them, accompanied by the Albany. The Niger, Captain Bunce, sent aboard to the Terrible as soon as he came up with her. The Albany shortly afterwards [pg 108]took up her position on our starboard quarter, and signalled that she spoke the Niger at noon, bearing E. by N., and that the Lily was anchored at the station in the entrance of Trinity Bay, as arranged with the Admiral. The Albany also reported that she had passed an iceberg about sixty feet high. At twenty minutes after 4 p.m. the Niger came on our port side, quite close, and Captain Bunce, sending the crew into the rigging and manning the yards, gave us three cheers, which were heartily returned by the Great Eastern. She then steamed ahead towards Trinity Bay. The Albany was signalled to go on immediately to Heart’s Content, clear the N.E. side of the harbour of shipping, and place a boat with a red flag for Captain Anderson to steer to for anchorage. Just before dinner we saw on the southern horizon, distant about ten miles, an iceberg, probably the one that the Albany had met with. It was apparently about fifty or sixty feet in height. The fog came on very thickly about 8 p.m., and between that and 10 we were constantly exchanging guns and burning blue lights with the Terrible, which, with the Niger, went in search of the Lily station-ship. The Terrible being signalled to come up and take her position, informed us that they had made the Lily out, and that she bore then about ENE., distant about four miles. Later in the night Captain Commerell said that if Captain Anderson would stop the Great Eastern he would send the surveyor, Mr. Robinson, R.N., who came up in the Niger, aboard of us; and about 3 the engines were slowed, and the Terrible shortly afterwards came alongside with that officer. Catalina Light, at the entrance of Trinity Bay, had been made out three hours before this, and the loom of the coast had also been seen. Fog still prevailing! According to Mr. Robinson’s account, if they had got one clear day in seven at the entrance of Trinity Bay they considered themselves fortunate. Here we are now (6 a.m.) within ten miles of Heart’s Content, and we can scarcely see more than a ship’s length. The Niger, however, is ahead, and her repeated guns tell us where we are with accuracy. Good fortune follows us, and scarcely has 8 o’clock arrived, when the massive curtain of fog raises itself gradually from both sides of Trinity Bay, disclosing to us the entrance of Heart’s Content, the Albany making for the harbour, the Margaretta Stevenson, surveying vessel, steaming out to meet us, the pre-arranged pathway all marked with buoys by Mr. T. H. Kerr, R.N., and a whole fleet of fishing boats fishing at the entrance. We could now plainly see that Heart’s Content, so far as its capabilities permitted, was prepared to welcome us. The British and American flags floated from the church and telegraph station and other buildings. We had dressed ship, fired a salute, and given three cheers, and Captain Commerell, of H.M.S. Terrible, was soon on board to congratulate us on our success. At 9 o’clock, ship’s time, just as we had cut the cable and made arrangements for the Medway to lay the shore end, a message arrived, giving us the concluding words of a leader in this morning’s Times: ‘It is a great work, a glory to our age and nation, and the men who have achieved it deserve to be honoured amongst the benefactors of their race.’ ‘Treaty of peace signed between Prussia and Austria!’ It was now time for the chief engineer, Mr. Canning, to make preparations for splicing on board the Medway. Accompanied by Mr. Good, M.P., Mr. Clifford, Mr. Willoughby Smith, and Messrs. Temple and Deane, he went on board; the Terrible and Niger having sent their paddle-box boats to assist. Shortly afterwards the Great Eastern steamed into the harbour and anchored on the NE. side, and was quickly surrounded by boats laden with visitors. Mr. Cyrus Field had gone on shore before the [pg 110]Great Eastern had left the offing, with a view of telegraphing to St. John’s to hire a vessel to repair the cable unhappily broken between Cape Ray, in Newfoundland, and Cape North, in Breton Island. Before a couple of hours the shore end will be landed, and it is impossible to conceive a finer day for effecting this our final operation. To-morrow Heart’s Content will awaken to the fact that it is a highly-favoured place in the world’s esteem, the western landing-place of that marvel of electric communication with the eastern hemisphere which is now happily, and we hope finally, established.” The foregoing simple record tells the great story of this memorable voyage. In England the progress of the expedition was known from day to day, but on the American side of the ocean all was uncertainty. Some had gone to Heart’s Content hoping to witness the arrival of the fleet, but not so many as the year before, for the memory of the last failure was too fresh, and they feared another disappointment. But still a faithful few were there who kept their daily watch. The correspondents of the American papers reported only a long and anxious suspense till that morning when the first ship was seen in the offing. And now the hull of the Great Eastern looms up all glorious in that morning sky. They are coming! Instantly all was wild excitement on shore. Boats put off to row towards the fleet. The Albany was the first to round the point and enter the bay. The Terrible came close behind. The Medway stopped an hour or two to join on the heavy shore end, while the Great Eastern, gliding calmly in as if she had done nothing remarkable, dropped her anchor in front of the telegraph house, having trailed behind her a chain of two thousand miles, to bind the Old World to the New. That same afternoon, as soon as the shore end was landed, Captain Anderson and the officers of the fleet went in a body to the little church of Heart’s Content to render thanks for the success of the expedition. A sermon was preached on the text, “There shall be no more sea,” and all joined in the sublime prayers and thanksgivings of the Church of England. Thus the voyage ended as it began.
THE “GREAT EASTERN” LAYING THE ATLANTIC CABLE.
(From Cassell’s “Illustrated History of England.”)
Although the expedition reached Newfoundland on Friday the 27th, yet as the cable across the Gulf of St. Lawrence was broken, the news was not received in New York until the 29th. It was early Sunday morning, before the Sabbath bells had rung their call to prayer, that the tidings came. The first announcement was brief—“Heart’s Content, July 27th.—We arrived here at nine o’clock this morning. All well. Thank God the cable is laid, and is in perfect working order.—Cyrus W. Field.” Soon followed the despatch to the Associated Press, giving the details of the voyage, and ending with a just tribute to the skill and devotion of all who had contributed to its success. Said Mr. Field: “I cannot find words suitable to convey my admiration for the men who have so ably conducted the nautical, engineering, and electrical departments of this enterprise, amidst difficulties which must be seen to be appreciated; in fact, all on board of the telegraph fleet, and all connected with the enterprise, have done their best to have the cable made and laid in a perfect condition.” Other despatches followed in quick succession, giving the latest events of the war in Europe. All this confirmed the great triumph, and filled the breasts of many with wonder and gratitude that Sabbath day as they went up to the house of God and rendered thanks to Him who is Lord of the earth and sea.
CHAPTER X.
The Ocean and its Living Wonders.
Perfection in Nature’s Smallest Works—A Word on Scientific Classification—Protozoa—Blind Life—Rhizopoda—Foraminifera—A Robbery Traced by Science—Microscopic Workers—Paris Chalk—Infusoria—The “Sixth Sense of Man”—Fathers of Nations—Milne-Edwards’ Submarine Explorations—The Salt-water Aquarium—The Compensating Balance Required—Brighton and Sydenham—Practical Uses of the Aquarium—Medusæ: their Beauty—A Poet’s Description—Their General Characteristics—Battalions of “Jelly-fish”—Polyps—A Floating Colony—A Marvellous Organism—The Graceful Agalma—Swimming Apparatus—Natural Fishing Lines—The “Portuguese Man-of-War”—Stinging Powers of the Physalia—An Enemy to the Cuttle-fish.
Pliny says that “Nature is nowhere more perfect than in her smaller works.” How gradually, yet beautifully, do the lower forms of life ascend to the higher! Here we may well remember the following: Scientific naturalists, men of logical minds arranging the facts of Nature with methodical and almost mathematical precision, have distributed the forms of animal life into divisions, classes, orders, families, genera, and species. These divisions, however convenient, are, it must be noted, merely of human invention, subject to alteration as knowledge increases—subject even to positive mistake. Linnæus tells us that Natura non facit saltus—Nature does not jump or leap from one stage to another, but passes almost insensibly, life merging into other life.
A word commonly employed in connection with the lower forms of marine life also requires some passing notice. The term zoophyte, derived from two Greek words signifying respectively animal and plant, would seem appropriate enough in describing generally many of the organisms found in the great deep. But the term as now used signifies an animal, and nothing but one, however plant-like it may appear.