ENGINEERING DIFFICULTIES 53 
of Morse’s secretary. Two London papers were also represent- 
ed. Mullaly later wrote a book about the expedition, The 
Laying of the Telegraphic Cable. He had also accompanied 
the Newfoundland party two years before. 
Morse himself was seasick much of the time, as was also 
Field, who had been ill on shore. ‘The young chief engineer 
of the British company, Charles T. Bright, was also on board, 
with Samuel Canning and other assistants. Dr. Whitehouse, 
the electrician of the British company, stayed at Valentia. 
Continual telegraphic communication was maintained 
along the newly-laid cable between Valentia and the Niagara. 
At one stage, for some obscure reason, the cable messages 
stopped for two and a half hours, and the engineers were so 
disappointed that they almost cut the cable in despair. ‘Then 
the electric impulses resumed as mysteriously as they had 
stopped, and everyone cheered up. But greater grief was in 
store, even though the “drop-off” two hundred miles out was 
passed successfully and deep water gave no trouble at first. 
Four days out, when three hundred eighty miles had been 
laid to depths up to two miles, the cable snapped. ‘The pow- 
erful brakes had been manipulated too suddenly as a wave 
rose under the ship, increasing the weight and strain. A cry 
of anguish ran through the squadron; the officials were 
stunned. Half a million dollars in material and labor had 
vanished beneath the waves. 
The ships sorrowfully returned and discharged their car- 
goes. ‘The Niagara sailed back to America. Any continuation 
of the project would have to be postponed for another sum- 
mer. Before Cyrus Field left England, however, he persuaded 
the directors of the British company to increase the capital 
and to order seven hundred miles of new cable. Depressed 
at first, he was not a man to let one failure deter him from his 
aim; as the son of the Reverend David Dudley Field, he had 
inherited steadfast and unswerving resolution. Skepticism 
had increased, however, since the loss of the cable, and many 
