_Tuesday, July 25th._--The Hawk was observed soon after daybreak coming towards the Great Eastern. The wind was still light and the sea moderate. All during the night the process of picking up was carefully carried on, the Big Ship behaving beautifully, and hanging lightly over the Cable, as if fearful of breaking the slender cord which swayed up and down in the ocean. Indeed, so delicately did she answer her helm and coil in the film of thread-like Cable over her bows, that she put one in mind of an elephant taking up a straw in its proboscis. At 7·15 a.m., Greenwich time, 9½ miles of Cable had been picked up from the sea, and the thin greyish coating of mud which dropped from it showed that the bed of the Atlantic here was of a soft ooze. The Cable had been cut twice on board, to enable the electricians to apply tests separately to the coils in the tanks. At 9 a.m., ship’s time, when somewhat more than 10¼ miles had been hauled in, to the joy of all the “fault” was discovered. The Cable came in with flagrant evidence of the mischief. The cause of so much anxiety, delay, and bitter disappointment turned out to be a piece of wire of the same kind as that used in the protecting strands of the Cable itself. It was two inches long or so--rather bent in the middle, with one end sharp and bright, as if from a sharp fracture or being cut by a pair of pliers--the other end blunt and jagged. This piece of wire had been forced through the outer covering of the Cable into the gutta percha, so as to injure the insulation, but no one could tell how it got into the tank. The general impression was, that it was a piece of Cable or other wire which had been accidently carried into the tank, and forced into the coil by the pressure of the paying-out machinery as the Cable flew between the jockey-wheels.