The next question which arose for consideration was, how the Cable was to be laid in the ocean. The Great Eastern, then known as the Leviathan, alone could embrace it within her gigantic hold; but then the vast fabric had never been tried. She might prove a failure, and in doing so, involve that of a far greater and a far more important experiment. It was then determined that the responsibility should be divided, and the burden be entrusted to two vessels of smaller dimensions. The British Government placed at the service of the Company the Agamemnon line-of-battle ship, and the government of the United States of America sent over the Niagara. The Agamemnon was considered to be admirably adapted for receiving the Cable, by reason of her peculiar construction; her engines being situated near the stern, and there, being amidships a magnificent hold, forty-five feet square and twenty feet deep between the lower deck and the keel. In this receptacle one half of the Cable was distributed round a central core in a compact, single, and nearly circular coil. She lay moored off the wharf at Greenwich, and the Cable was drawn into her hold by a small journeyman engine of twelve-horse power, the rope running over sheaves borne aloft upon the masts of two or three barges, so moored between the wharf and the ship as to afford intermediate support. The Niagara, though not by construction well adapted for the Cable, was rendered so by judicious alterations at Portsmouth. She arrived in the Mersey on 22nd June, and was regarded with much curiosity and interest in Liverpool, where Captain Hudson and his officers received every attention. The Cable was coiled on board her in three weeks. Cork Harbour was selected as the place where these vessels should rendezvous, and make all final arrangements; from whence they were to proceed to the completion of the task, piloted by the U.S. frigate Susquehanna and H.M. frigate Leopard, both paddle-wheel steamers of great power. Within the barony of Iveragh, in the county of Kerry, on an island six miles long by two broad, lies the village of Knightstown and harbour of Valentia, the most westerly port in Europe. It is at the southern entrance of the open bay of Dingle towards the sea. Doulas Head on the east, and Reenadroolan Point on the west, mark the entrance to the narrows. It can boast of two forts erected by Cromwell. The Skelligs--two picturesque and rugged pinnacles of slate--pierce the surface of the sea about eight miles S.W. of the harbour; and one of these, the “Great Skellig,” crowned with a light-house, towers to a height of 700 feet.