Year: 1865

with the final departure of this great tele-
graphic expedition are completed. On
Wednesday the Amethyst left the telegraph
works with the last length of 245 miles of
cable on board, and on Saturday the oper-
alton Of coiling this in was begun. This
work will probably last till the 22d inst,
when the Great Eastern will have in her as
nearly as possible 1000 tuns of cable, or,
including the iron tanks which contain it
and the water in which it was sunk, about
5000 tuns in all In addition to this she
has already 1000 tuns of coal on board,
and 800 tuns more still to take in This
additional weight, however, will not be
added until she leaves the Midway, which
she will do Oh the morning of the Gath, for
the More, when the rest of the Goals and
special stores will be put on board, and
these will bring her mean draught down to
32J feet Her total weight, including en-
gines, will then be rather over 81 900 tuns,
a stupendous mass for any ship to carry,
but well within the capacity of the Great
Eastern, of which the measurement tun-
mage is $4,000 Her way out from the
More will be by BullOck's Channel which
the Admiralty are having carefully buoyed
to avoid all risks III those rather shallow
waters Before the following Spring tides
set in, about the 9Th or 7th of July, the
Great Eastern will start for Valentia -
There she is expected to arrive about the
9th or 10TH and there she will be met by
the two ships of war appointed to convey
her-the Terrible and the Sphinx. Both
these vessels are being fitted with the best
apparatus for deep sea sOundings; with
buoys and means for buoying the end Of
the cable, if ever it should become neces-
sary and with Bollens night-light naval
signals with which the Great Eastern is
likewise to be supplied. To avoid all chan
ces of accident, the big ship will not ap-
proach the Irish coast nearer than 30 or %
miles, and her stay off Valentia will be linn


tied to the time occupied in making
splice with the massive shore end, which
for a length of 25 miles from the coast will
be laid previous to her arrival. This mon
strous shore end, which is the heaviest and
strongest piece of cable ever made, will be
dispatched in few days, and be laid from
the head Of a sheltered inlet near Cahirel-
veen out to the distance we have stated,
where the end will be buoyed and watched
by the ships Of war till the Great Eastern
herself comes up. Some idea of the strength
and solidity Of this great end NAV be
SucSSel ny lHt ldCt bndl llS Weight per
mile is very little short of half the weight of
an ordinary railway metal. For the shore
end at Newfoundland only three miles are
required. and this short length will be sent
in the Great Eastern When once the
splice is made from the great cable ship to
the English shore end--an operation which
will consume about five hours--the work of
laying the cable will instantly commence


By that time every mile of the cable in the
three tanks will have been joined up, and
at a stated hour morning and evening, a
series of signals will be sent through the
cable to the land at Ialenta, and thence to
London, giving the latitude and longitude
of the great ship, and state of the weather,
and the number of miles paid out. The ca
BILE will be first taken out from the forward
tank, next from that amidship, and lastly
from that astern and if all goes well the
vessel should arrive with nearly 500 miles
of cable III her still unused, an excess
which is most wisely allowed in case of ac-
cident We may add that since the paying
out apparatus has been in work its action
has been faultless Messrs Canning, Cliff
ford, and Temple have absolute charge of
all the details connected with the submer-
gence Mr.. De Sanity is in charge of the
electrical condition of the cable for the
makers, Mr.. Narley goes to represent the
Atlantic Company, and Professor Thompson
as scientific adviser and referee. These
gentlemen, however, are only the chiefs of
the various large departmental staff which
will be on board.


With regard to the process of laying, it
is hoped the Great Eastern may be kept
throughout the whole voyage at uniform
speed of six knots per hour, faster than
which it would not be SAFE as a rule, to
run out the cable At less speed than this,
however, the big ship would fail of steer
age way, and with beam wind would GER


tainly go to leeward without some counter
acting influence. This influence, will be
afforded, Unnecessary, by the paddle-engines,
which are to be disconnected, and the eff
forts of one wheel at either side would be
quite sufficient to over-balance the effects
of anything but a very violent storm. This


latter risk is now literally all that has to
be feared. Everything else which human
foresi ight can suggest either in cable or
ships, everything which long experience or
scientific progress can devise, has been
provided, and the success or failure of this
vast expedition is now only question of
weather On this only doubtful point,
therefore, it is gratifying to know that
Capt. Anderson is sanguine of all going
we'll In his experience of many years and
hundreds of voyages backward and for
ward in command of the Cunard lines over
this very track of the Atlantic, he states
that in the early part of July it never blows
long or strong, and that during that time
he has never even heard of any bad wea-
ther which could for moment affect a
vessel like the Great Eastern. If these an
ticipations should prove correct-and there
are none better capable of forming them
than Capt Anderson-and if all goes well,
both as to course and rate of steaming, tel
egraphic communications with the United
States may be looked for at the latest about
the Goth or 2lst of next month Yet, in
this estimate of events, it must not be for
gotten that in the last memorable expedi-
, ton in the Agamemnon, midsummer was
fixed ON as the time when storm in the
Atlantic was almost impossible, and the
records of the meteorological departments
both here and i'll America, certainly justi
fled such an expedition, as they showed
= that for fifty years no storm had taken
4 place at that time Yet 1T was nreciselN