The next was a day of beautiful weather. The ships were getting farther away from land, and began to steam ahead at the rate of four and five knots. The cable was paid out at a speed a little faster than the ship, to allow for inequalities of surface on the bottom of the sea. While it was{67} thus going overboard, communication was kept up constantly with the land, partly by what are known as “continuity signals”—i. e., electrical signals at definite time intervals from ship to shore, as a test of the continuity of the line.
To quote Mr. Field again: “Every moment the current was passing between ship and shore. The communication was as perfect as between Liverpool and London, or Boston and New York. Not only did the electricians telegraph back to Valentia the progress they were making, but the officers on board sent messages to their friends in America to go out by the steamers from Liverpool. The heavens seemed to smile on them that day. The coils came up from below the deck without a kink, and, unwinding themselves easily, passed over the stern into the sea.
“All Sunday (9th inst.) the same favoring fortune continued; and when the officers who could be spared from the deck met in the cabin, and Captain Hudson read the service, it was with subdued voices and grateful hearts that they responded to the prayers to ‘Him who spreadeth out the heavens and ruleth the raging of the sea.’
“On Monday (10th) they were over two hundred miles at sea. They had got far beyond the shallow waters off the coast. They had passed over the submarine mountain that figures on the charts of Dayman and Berryman, and where Mr. Bright’s log gives a descent from 550 to 1,750 fathoms within eight miles. Then they came to the deeper waters of the Atlantic where the cable sank to the awful depths of 2,000 fathoms. Still the iron cord buried itself in the waves, and every{68} instant the flash of light in the darkened telegraph room told of the passage of the electric current.
“Everything went well till 3.45 P.M. on the fourth day out (Tuesday, August 11th), when the cable snapped, after 380 miles had been laid, owing to mismanagement on the part of the mechanic at the brakes.”
Thus the familiar thin line which had been streaming out from the Niagara for six days was no longer to be seen by the accompanying vessels.
One who was present wrote:
“The unbidden tear started to many a manly eye. The interest taken in the enterprise by officers and men alike exceeded anything ever seen, and there is no wonder that there should have been so much emotion on the occasion of the accident.”
The following report from Bright gives the details of the expedition up to the time of this regrettable occurrence:
Report to the Directors of the Atlantic Telegraph Company, August, 1857