The buoy was supposed to be some 12 miles distant from the end of the Cable, and not far from the slack made by the Great Eastern. If we got this slack, the Cable would come up more easily on the grapnel. Of course, if the buoy had been ready when the Cable broke, it would have been cast loose at the spot where the wire rope and grapnel sank. If the Cable could be caught, it was proposed either to place a breaking strain upon it, so as to get a loose end and a portion of slack, and then to grapple for it a second time within a mile or so of the end, or to try and take it inboard without breaking. Some suggested that the Great Eastern should steam at once to Trinity Bay, where the fleet was lying, and ask the admiral for a couple of men-of-war to help us in grappling; but those acquainted with our naval resources declared that it would be useless, as the ships would have no tackle aboard fit for the work, and could not get it even at Halifax. Others recommended an immediate return to England for a similar purpose, to get a complete outfit for grappling before the season was advanced, and to return to the end of the Cable, or to a spot 100 miles east of it, where the water is not so deep. What was positive was, that more than 1,100 miles of the most perfect Cable ever laid, as regards electrical conditions, was now lying three-quarters of the way across from Valentia to Newfoundland. _Monday, Aug. 7th._--During the night it was raining, fogging, drizzling, clouding over and under, doing anything but blowing, and of course as we drifted hither and thither,--the largest float that currents and waves ever toyed with,--we had no notion of any particular value of our whereabouts. But at 4 a.m. a glimpse was caught of the Terrible lying-to about 6 miles distant, and we steered gently towards her and found that she was keeping watch over the buoy, which was floating apparently 2 miles away from her. Our course was W.N.W. till we came nearly abreast of the buoy shortly before 9 a.m., when it was altered to N.W. The wind was light and from the northward, and the Great Eastern steamed quietly onwards that she might heave over the grapnel and drift down on the line of the Cable when the fog cleared and the wind favoured.