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Updated: June 2, 2025
'5.30 A.M. Out of sight of land: about thirty nautical miles in the hold; the wind rising a little; experiments being made for a fault, while the engine slowly revolves to keep us hanging at the same spot: depth supposed about a mile. The machinery has behaved admirably. Oh! that the paying-out were over!
Woe betide him if it had been, for there was a serious talk of lynching some one among the wrathful men, each of whom was now subject to suspicion. In these trying circumstances, the chief engineer accepted an offer made by the gentlemen in the ship, to take turn about in superintending the men at work in the tank paying-out the cable.
"True, little one, and yonder comes a toy steamer," said Sam, who had been contemplating the paying-out gear in silent admiration, "with some rather curious dolls on it." "Oh!" exclaimed Letta, with great surprise, "look, Robin, look at the horses just as if we were on shore!"
The Great Eastern looks like an island on the water steady as a rock, obedient only to the rise and fall of the ocean swell, as she glides along at the rate of six knots an hour. All is going well. The complicated-looking paying-out machinery revolves smoothly; the thread-like cable passes over the stern, and down into the deep with the utmost regularity.
Hurrah, victory! for the present anyhow. Whilst in our first dejection, I thought I saw a place where a flat roller would remedy the whole misfortune; but a flat roller at Cape Spartivento, hard, easily unshipped, running freely! There was a grooved pulley used for the paying-out machinery with a spindle wheel, which might suit me.
I am naturally in good spirits, but keep very quiet, for misfortunes may arise at any instant; moreover, to-morrow my paying-out apparatus will be wanted should all go well, and that will be another nervous operation. Fifteen miles are safely in, but no one knows better than I do that nothing is done till all is done.
But the cable had been saved and the expedition was enabled to proceed to the rendezvous. The Niagara, a larger ship, had weathered the storm without mishap. The splice was effected on Saturday, the 26th, but before three miles had been laid the cable caught in the paying-out machinery on the Niagara and was broken off. Another splice was made that evening and the ships started again.
That with a steam-engine attached to the paying-out machinery, should a fault be discovered on board whilst laying the cable, it is possible that it might be recovered before it had reached the bottom of the Atlantic, and repaired at once. It was now placed beyond the possibility of a doubt that the cable would be laid within the next year.
Bright, the engineer of the company, is there, and Mr. Everett, Mr. De Sauty, the electrician, and Professor Morse. The paying-out machinery does its work, and though it makes a constant rumble in the ship, that dull, heavy sound is music to their ears, as it tells them that all is well.
The 2,300 miles of heavy cable was coiled into the hull and paying-out machinery was installed upon the decks. Huge quantities of coal and other supplies were added. Capt. James Anderson of the Cunard Line was placed in command of the ship for the expedition, with Captain Moriarty, R.N., as navigating officer. Professor Thomson and Mr.
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