On the evening of Friday, July 27, the expedition made the entrance of
Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, in a thick fog, and next morning the Great
Eastern cast her anchor at Heart's Content. Flags were flying from the
little church and the telegraph station on shore. The Great Eastern was
dressed, three cheers were given, and a salute was fired. At 9 a.m. a
message from England cited these words from a leading article in the
current TIMES: 'It is a great work, a glory to our age and nation,
and the men who have achieved it deserve to be honoured among the
benefactors of their race.' 'Treaty of peace signed between Prussia and
Austria.' The shore end was landed during the day by the Medway; and
Captain Anderson, with the officers of the telegraph fleet, went in a
body to the church to return thanks for the success of the expedition.
Congratulations poured in, and friendly telegrams were again exchanged
between Her Majesty and the United States. The great work had been
finally accomplished, and the two worlds were lastingly united.
On August 9 the Great Eastern put to sea again in order to grapple
the lost cable of 1865, and complete it to Newfoundland. Arriving in
mid-ocean she proceeded to fish for the submerged line in two thousand
fathoms of water, and after repeated failures, involving thirty casts of
the grapnel, she hooked and raised it to surface, then spliced it to
the fresh cable in her hold, and payed out to Heart's Content, where
she arrived on Saturday, September 7. There were now two fibres of
intelligence between the two hemispheres.
On his return home, Professor Thomson was among those who received
the honour of knighthood for their services in connection with the
enterprise. He deserved it. By his theory and apparatus he probably did
more than any other man, with the exception of Mr. Field, to further the
Atlantic telegraph. We owe it to his admirable inventions, the mirror
instrument of 1857 and the siphon recorder of 1869, that messages
through long cables are so cheap and fast, and, as a consequence, that
ocean telegraphy is now so common. Hence some account of these two
instruments will not be out of place.
Sir William Thomson's siphon recorder, in all its present completeness,
must take rank as a masterpiece of invention. As used in the recording
or writing in permanent characters of the messages sent through
long submarine cables, it is the acknowledged chief of 'receiving
instruments,' as those apparatus are called which interpret the
electrical condition of the telegraph wire into intelligible signals.
Like other mechanical creations, no doubt its growth in idea and
translation into material fact was a step-by-step process of evolution,
culminating at last in its great fitness and beauty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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