11G ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



It will be observed that the distances run during the five full days were re- 

 markably uniform, 149 miles per day, and the excess of cable paid out was 

 about 15 per cent, more than the ship's record. Twice during the progress of 

 the ship, from some unexplained cause, signals failed to pass between them, 

 viz., at 7 1-2 P. M. July 29, for an hour, and August 2, from 12 h 38 m A. M. to 

 5.40 A. M. But during all the remainder of the time signals were constantly 

 received; and at the last, the Agamemnon, August 5, signalized the Niagara 

 that they had paid out 1010 miles of cable. The cable was landed at Valen- 

 tia Bay on Thursday, August 5, and at 6 A. M. the shore end was carried into 

 the telegraph house, and a strong current of electricity received through the 

 whole cable from the other side of the Atlantic. 



On the 6th of August, a message of thirty -one words was transmitted from 

 Ireland to Newfoundland in thirty-five minutes, and on the 17th of August, 

 the Queen of Great Britain transmitted a congratulatory message to the Pres- 

 ident of the United States, expressing her joy at the completion of this 

 great international bond, to which President Buchanan responded in the 

 same spirit. 



After this the electrical condition of the wire became daily more faulty, and 

 it was only with the greatest difficulty, and by constant repetition, that mes- 

 sages were transmitted to Newfoundland, although return messages to Val- 

 cntia were, in almost every case, clear and distinct. The last intelligible sig- 

 nal received at either end of the line was on the 4th of September; since which 

 date the cable has remained practically inoperative. We are, however, in- 

 formed, that the electric current is still unbroken, but that its indications are 

 too feeble to admit of any application to telegraphic purposes. The electri- 

 cian-in-chief has arrived at the conclusion that there are at least two serious 

 faults in the cable, one of them dating from before the submergence, and 

 between 500 and 600 miles from Yalentia; the other about 270 miles distant, 

 and at the place where, owing to the sudden change in the depth of the sea, 

 danger had always been apprehended; that one or both of these faults have 

 been aggravated, if not made fatal, by the intense currents used to overcome 

 the difficulty, and that electrical tests indicated, what was otherwise too prob- 

 able, that at least the Agamemnon's portion of the cable was in a very dam- 

 aged state before it was submerged. 



c5 



In the present condition of the line, the great natural currents of electricity, 

 which are continually traversing the surface of the earth in various directions, 

 act by their inductive effects upon the great length of cable submerged, and 

 disturb the needles and galvanometers at both ends of the line to a consider- 

 able degree. This nature and action, if properly observed and studied by 

 means of the Atlantic Cable, would, no doubt, throw considerable light upon 

 the phenomena of diurnal magnetic variations, to account for which no sat- 

 isfactory law has been proposed. On the night of Monday, the 6th of Sep- 

 tember, one of those extraordinary phenomena called magnetic storms must 

 have passed over the track of the cable; for from half-past eleven to half-past 

 twelve, the reflecting galvanometer in connection with the line was most vio- 

 lently disturbed. The reflections were so rapid and violent that it was only 

 occasionally that the reflected ray of light could be distinguished upon the 

 reading scale. 



The London Times, in commenting on the present condition of the Atlan- 

 tic Telegraph enterprise, uses the following language : 



For the present, and as regards this particular cable, we feel as people do 

 about a tree languishing from some inscrutable disease, or a child that pines 



