This leviathan of the deep was finally fitted up as a “cable ship,” and for a short time did good service in that line. In 1865 she had laid the second Atlantic cable to within a few hundred miles of Newfoundland, when it snapped and disappeared in 1,950 fathoms of water. Next year the _Great Eastern_ not only was the means of laying a new cable successfully, but was the means of picking up the lost one—a remarkable feat of seamanship and electrical skill. After laying several other cables the big ship was tied up, never to go again. She was eventually sold for £16,000 and broken up, a somewhat tragic ending for such a triumph of engineering skill. But who can tell how much the successful “liner” of to-day owes to the failure of the _Great Eastern_? She came out ahead of time, and when the intricate art of managing successfully the details of an ocean steamship had yet to be learned. Isambard Kingdom Brunel, born at Portsmouth in 1806, was the son of Sir Mark I. Brunel, a French engineer, who attained celebrity as the architect of the Thames Tunnel, and other important works, in which he was assisted by his son, who also became famous as the Engineer-in-Chief of the Great Western Railroad, in the construction of which he adopted the broad gauge (7 feet), against the remonstrances of Stephenson and other railway authorities, and which was eventually changed to what has become the national gauge (4 feet, 8½ inches), at enormous expense. Mr. Brunel died in 1859. It was his misfortune to have landed on this planet about fifty years too soon. THE SCREW-PROPELLER.