After weighing anchor Captain Blomsberry and Lieutenant Bronsfield got down into an eight-oared boat which carried them rapidly to the land.
They jumped out on the quay.
"The telegraph-office?" they asked, without answering one of the thousand questions that were showered upon them.
The port inspector guided them himself to the telegraph-office, amidst an immense crowd of curious people.
Blomsberry and Bronsfield went into the office whilst the crowd crushed against the door.
A few minutes later one message was sent in four different
directions:—1st, to the Secretary of the Navy, Washington; 2nd, to the
Vice-President of the Gun Club, Baltimore; 3rd, to the Honourable J.T.
Maston, Long's Peak, Rocky Mountains; 4th, to the Sub-Director of the
Cambridge Observatory, Massachusetts.
It ran as follows:—
"In north lat. 20° 7', and west long. 41° 37', the projectile of the Columbiad fell into the Pacific, on December 12th, at 1.17 am. Send instructions.—BLOMSBERRY, Commander Susquehanna."
Five minutes afterwards the whole town of San Francisco knew the tidings. Before 6 p.m. the different States of the Union had intelligence of the supreme catastrophe. After midnight, through the cable, the whole of Europe knew the result of the great American enterprise.
It would be impossible to describe the effect produced throughout the world by the unexpected news.