It was decided by the Company that the Niagara should land the shore end in Valentia, and pay it out till her cargo was exhausted mid-way, where the Agamemnon was to take up the tale and carry it on to Newfoundland. The time best adapted for depositing the Cable in the ocean was determined after much thought and deliberation. The result of Lieutenant Maury’s observations was, that in the months of June and July the risk of storms is very small, unless immediately on the coast of Ireland, while the records of the Meteorological Departments, both in England and America, showed that for fifty years no great storm had taken place at that period. It was finally arranged to adopt Lieutenant Maury’s views, “that between the 20th July and the 10th of August both sea and air were in the most favourable condition for laying down the Cable,” and that the vessels should be dispatched so as to reach the rendezvous in mid-ocean, where the Cable was to be spliced, as soon after the 20th of July as possible. It had been ascertained that the distance over which the Cable was to be laid was 1,834 miles, but 600 additional miles of Cable were provided, being an allowance of 33 per cent. of “slack.” Arrangements had been made that when the vessels joined company off Cork the entire length of the Cable should be temporarily joined up for the purpose of being tested through its entire length, as also to allow of some experiments being made to prove the efficiency of the signalling apparatus. The Cable was arranged so as to come up from the hold of the ship sweeping round a central block or core planted in the midst, to prevent any interference of the unrolling strands with one another, or too sudden turns, which might twist the Cable into kinks; having reached the open space above the deck, it was to be wound out and in, round four grooved sheaves, geared together by cogs, and planted so firmly on girders as to render it impossible that they should be thrown out of the square. From sheaves accurately grooved the Cable proceeded three or four feet above the poop-deck, until it passed over a fifth grooved sheave standing out upon rigid arms over the stern. From this it would make its plunge into the deep still sea, and as the vessel moved away to be dragged out by its own weight, and by the hold which it would have acquired upon the bottom of the sea. The paying-out sheaves were large grooved drums, five feet in diameter, and set in a vertical plane, one directly before the other, and having a friction drum geared to them in such a way that its shaft revolved three times as fast as theirs, the axis of the drum being encircled by two blocks of hard wood, which could be gripped close upon its circumference by screw power, so as either to retard or arrest altogether the movement of the sheaves. The screw was worked by a crank, at which a trustworthy officer was stationed, to keep a wary eye upon an indicator near to express the exact amount of strain