The Sun.
London, England, 1869-06-11 00:00:00

THE FRENCH ATLANTIC CABLE

A farewell entertainment was given on Thursday by the
Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company, on
board the Great Eastern steamship, now lying off
Sheerness, where she has shipped her cargo of electric
cable, 2,732 miles long, in tanks of an increased size to
accommodate the length of coil, which is greater by some
-100 miles than was paid out by her between Valencia and
and Heart's Content, A special train took down from
Charing-cross to Strood a large party of guests, Who were
conveyed on by boat to the anchorage of the big ship,
fourteen or fifteen miles down . the Medway ; and the
assembled company on board the Great Eastern in.
eluded Lord Houghton, Sir Samuel Canning, Sir James
Anderson, Sir William Thompson, Baron d'Erlanger,
Baron and Baroness de Stern, Captain Forbes, Lieut.-
Colonel Glover, R.E., Lord William Hay, Mr. George
Elliot, M.P., Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Elliot, Captain and
Mrs. Barrow, Mr. and Mrs. John render, Mr. Crampton,
Captain Sherrard-OsLorne, Mr. Thomas Brassey, M.P.
and Mrs. Brassey, Professor Jenkin, Mr. Reuter, Mr.
Henry Clifford, and Mr. Cromwell Varley, who accompanies
the expedition as consulting engineer in place of Sir
William Thompson. Sir Daniel G ooch, M. P., the chairman
of the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company,
was president on Thursday at the luncheon served in the
magnificent though somewhat over-decorated saloon of the
Great Eastern. This floating island, as the ship was
called by Lord Houghton, looked lower in the water than
usual, and indeed was lower, by a foot or more, than she
has ever been. She is somewhat cumbered by deck
houses, and has, in other respects, been made to resemble
a floating American hotel more than the island of Lord
Houghton's fancy Though it is impossible so speak with
praise of the alterations about the ship, there are improve-
ments in her mechanism which are of some moment and
value. Her rudder, formerly worked by twelve men, now
answers the bidding of Seam machinery. A single helms-
man now turns the wheel. The paying-out machinery has
been perfected, and there is less chance of injury to the
cable than there has ever been. The Great Eastern
forthwith proceeds to Portland, and will there coal. It
should be mentioned that her departure on the 12th
instead of on the 30th of June, a clear gain o! eighteen
days, is fairly ascribable to the completion of the company's
contract so much within the limits of their time. It must
be satisfactory to them to learn, as they did from the
south of Lord William I4y, that already the Anglo-
French Company regard the cable perfect, even while
it lies below decks waiting to be spun out and trailed
astern. From Portland the ship proceeds to Brest, where
the operation of laying the cable will have been
commenced by the Chiltern, a vessel entrusted with
a few rotes of the heavy shore end. The ships will meet
at an appointed spot ; and the Great Eastern will pick up
the buoyed cable at sea. Then, after splicing and testing,
she will continue the work begun by her attendant ship.
She will have other attendant ships in this critical voyage
—the Scanderia and the William Cory ; or, rather they
will have preceded her across the Atlantic, to lay the
American shore end of the cable at St. Pierre. Sir
Samuel Canning has charge of the expedition ; and
Captain Halpin, who was chief officer under Sir James
Anderson, will, in consequence of that officer's resigna-
tion, take the command of the ship.