LA YING DEEP-SEA CABLES. 423 



. , __ 



actually brought with it safely to the surface, from 

 the bottom, a splice with a large weighted frame 

 attached to it, to prevent untwisting between the 

 two ships, from which two portions of cable with 

 opposite twists had been laid. The actual laying of 

 the cable a few months later, from mid ocean to 

 Valencia on one side, and Trinity Bay, Newfound- 

 land, on the other, regarded merely as a mechanical 

 achievement, took by surprise some of the most 

 celebrated engineers of the day, who had not 

 concealed their opinion, that the Atlantic Telegraph 

 Company had undertaken an impossible problem. 

 As a mechanical achievement it was completely 

 successful ; and the electric failure, after several 

 hundred messages (comprising upwards of 4,359 

 words) had been transmitted between Valencia and 

 Xewfoundland, was owing to electric faults existing 

 in the cable before it went to sea. Such faults 

 cannot escape detection, in the course of the 

 manufacture, under the improved electric testing 

 since brought into practice, and the causes which 

 led to the failure of the first Atlantic cable no 

 longer exist as dangers in submarine telegraphic 



