DIRECT ATLANTIC CABLE. 349 



prevented the taking up again. In accordance with 

 Charles's suggestion we afterwards used only a closed 

 steel -wire sheathing and thereby removed all the diffi- 

 culties, which so considerably hampered our first deep 

 sea laying. 



On the further technical improvements in the 

 method of laying cables in deep water, to which the 

 preceding enterprise led us, I cannot here enlarge. I 

 will only mention that my theory, propounded on laying 

 the Cagliari-Bona cable in 1857, has held its ground 

 very well. As already mentioned, I have further 

 developed and mathematically treated this theory in 

 an essay laid before the Berlin Academy of Sciences 

 and the Society of Telegraph Engineers and Electricians 

 in London, and believe that it may now be regarded 

 as fairly settled. 



The laying of this our first transatlantic cable 

 brought us brothers many exciting incidents, one of 

 which occurred at a very unfavourable moment and 

 profoundly agitated me. 



I had been elected in the year 1874 by the Royal 

 Academy of Sciences in Berlin one of its ordinary 

 members, an honour which hitherto had only fallen 

 to the lot of professed savans, and on the day fixed 

 for the purpose I was about to give my prescribed 

 inaugural address at a special meeting of the Academy, 

 when on leaving the house I received a telegraphic 

 message from London to the effect, that according 

 to a cablegram the Faraday had been crushed by 

 icebergs and had gone down with all hands on board. 



