186 
THE TELEGRAPH. 
quarter of a mile to five miles or more. This is hauled on 
board by the windlass, taking care that the ship is steered so 
as to avoid any horizontal strain on the cable, which might be 
thus damaged by being dragged along the bottom of the sea. 
When the rupture is reached, a buoy is anchored to indicate 
the position of the other end of the broken cable. This 
second end can therefore be grappled with the greatest ease, 
and the end may be brought on board without cutting the 
cable, even if it have been hooked so far from the rupture as to 
be tight. A piece of new cable is then joined to this, and the 
whole is sunk into the sea. If the distance be short, this can 
be done by the fore-pulley. If not, the cable is submerged 
from behind, until the first buoy is reached, marking the part 
in communication with the shore. This buoy is brought on 
board at the front part of the ship, and the end of the cable is 
taken aft, where the two ends are joined so as to avoid all 
difficulties from lines or rigging. When the splice has been 
made, the attaching lines are cut with a hatchet, and the 
cable is allowed to take its original position at the bottom of 
the sea. 
Such is a summary of the method of repairing a cable under 
the most favourable conditions. 
The operations just described relate chiefly to the methods 
used for ordinary depths. We shall proceed to consider the 
means employed in repairing one of the Atlantic cables 
brought up from depths of 3,000 and 4,500 yards. These 
operations, which were executed in 1866 to recover and com¬ 
plete the cable that was lost in 1865, are of too interesting 
a nature to be passed over here. 
The course followed by the Great Eastern in her several 
expeditions across the Atlantic has always been determined 
and laid down on the chart with the greatest possible precision, 
and the place where the 1865 cable broke was exactly known 
both electrically and nautically. 
The Great Eastern had, in 1865, passed several weeks 
trying to recover the lost cable. More than once it was 
hooked, and although the undertaking had to be given up, the 
time w r as not thrown away, since it was proved with certainty 
that it was possible, not only to hook the cable, but to raise it 
up from these immense depths. Sir James Anderson, the 
