The introduction of electricity and the invention of the telegraph caused a new sphere of work for the steamship. For connecting land to land across the sea, cables had to be laid, and for this purpose it was thought at one time that any very large steamship would suffice. It will be recollected that the unhappy _Great Eastern_ was thus employed after she had given up running as an Atlantic passenger ship. Then presently it was shown to be advisable to use specially designed ships for this purpose. The illustration facing page 244 shows an interesting little model of one of the older craft thus employed, the telegraph steamer _Monarch_, a schooner-rigged, iron, screw vessel built at Port Glasgow in 1883, for the Telegraph Department of the Post Office. Enormous sheaves are fitted at the bows as fair-leads for the cable to run out or for hauling it in. This particular ship was employed both in laying and repairing submarine cables, and could carry enough fuel and stores for six weeks’ work. She had a displacement of 2,135 tons, and a single propeller driven by compound engines. The bow-sheave will be easily discerned. An earlier telegraph ship was the _Medway_, launched in 1865, and built originally for the Mediterranean trade, but she was used in the following year to help the _Great Eastern_ in laying the Atlantic cable. She carried the Newfoundland end of the cable after the _Great Eastern_ had gone as near in to shore as she dared. The _Medway_ also carried 500 miles of cable in case the 2,730 miles which the _Great Eastern_ had aboard should prove inadequate. Another converted vessel, the _John Bowes_, was used in laying the cable from Dover to Ostend, but modern telegraph ships have the dimensions and general appearance of liners. The _Silvertown_, which was well-known on this work, is still afloat and to be seen in the West India Dock, London. Such modern cable-laying ships as the _Faraday_ are further supplied with platforms which project from the side of the ship at the stern for greater convenience in the work for which these vessels are intended. As much as from three to four thousand sea-miles of telegraph cable can be carried by some of these ships, which, in addition to the bow fair-lead have a similar arrangement at the stern, and are supplied with all necessary grappling apparatus in case a broken cable has to be picked up. [Illustration: THE TELEGRAPH STEAMER “MONARCH.” _From the Model in the Victoria and Albert Museum._] [Illustration: DECK VIEW OF THE TELEGRAPH SHIP “FARADAY.” _From a Photograph. By permission of Messrs. Siemens & Co._]