ENGINEERING DIFFICULTIES 49 
which had been stripped of its guns, was to lay the first half 
from Ireland to the middle of the Atlantic. ‘Then the other 
half of the cable was to be spliced on and laid to Newfound- 
land by the smaller British frigate, the Agamemnon, a screw- 
propelled, three-masted veteran of the Crimean War. This 
was still the day of wooden ships; the Agamemnon, for exam- 
ple, was of stout oak shaped in the old built-up style that had 
changed so little during the centuries. ‘The Niagara, of over 
5000 tons, was screw-propelled and could make ten or eleven 
miles an hour. The attending American ship, the Susque- 
hanna, was an old-fashioned side-wheeler. ‘These two ships 
were the pride of the American navy, and the Agamemnon 
was revered as a hero ship for its bombardment of Sebastopol 
in southern Russia. Another British ship, the Leopard at- 
tended the Agamemnon. All these ships used sails to supple- 
ment their steam power. Incidentally, while in England at 
this time, Field went down to Blackwall on the Thames to 
see a huge ship then being built. It was the Great Eastern, 
which eventually was to lay the cable; the 22,500 tons of this 
monster exceeded the tonnage of the entire cable fleet of 1857. 
‘There were banquets, receptions, and speeches before leav- 
ing Ireland. Queen Victoria’s representative, the Lord Lieu- 
tenant of Ireland, who was then the Earl of Carlisle, came 
down from Dublin and was entertained elaborately by the 
local Knight of Kerry, Peter Fitzgerald, who was lord of the 
manor for miles around the cable site. ‘The harbor of Valentia 
was studded with smaller vessels, decked with bunting, as 
visitors flocked in to see the inception of so illustrious an 
event. It is interesting to note that the Ireland-Newfound- 
land route became similarly important several generations 
later for airplane flights, and that crowds then gathered to 
watch “take-offs’” in much the same spirit as in 1857. 
The speech of Lord Carlisle, representing the Queen, in 
response to a toast shows the spirit of the occasion. He said 
in part: “I am probably the first Lieutenant of Ireland who 
