The credit attached to these second and third Atlantic cables must mainly rest with the Telegraph Construction Company (formerly Messrs. Glass, Elliot & Co.) and their staff, inasmuch as in this case the responsibility rested with them throughout. The directors--including Mr. Glass, Mr Elliot, Mr. Gooch, Mr. Pender, Mr. Barclay, and Mr. Brassey--deserved the reward which they and the shareholders would no doubt reap. To Mr. Glass, upon whom the principal responsibility of the manufacture devolved, the greatest praise was due for his indomitable perseverance in the enterprise. Then the art of insulating the conducting-wire had been so wonderfully improved by Mr. Chatterton and Mr. Willoughby Smith, that, nowadays, a very feeble electrical current was sufficient to work the longest circuits, an enormous advance on the state of affairs nine years previously. Again, they must not forget how much of the success now attained was due to Professor Thomson and his delicate signaling-apparatus, the advantages of which have since 1858 been more firmly established. Mr. Varley had also done most useful work since becoming electrician to the "Atlantic" Company. Moreover, he (Sir C. Bright) hoped the active personal services of his partner, Mr. Latimer Clark, would not be forgotten. It was satisfactory to find that the cables were already being worked at a very large profit. This system would doubtless be quadrupled within a short period, when the land-lines on the American side were improved (hear, hear, and applause). With this commercial success--combined with the improvements introduced into submarine cables, and the power of picking up and repairing them from vast depths--there was a future for submarine telegraphy to which scarcely any bounds could be imagined. A certain amount had already been done, but China and Japan, Australia and New Zealand, South America and the West India Islands, must all be placed within speaking-distance of England. When this last has been accomplished, but not till then, telegraphic engineers might take a short rest from their labors and ask with some little pride: Quoe regio in terris nostri non plena laboris? (loud applause). Then followed speeches from Lord Stanley, the American Consul (on behalf of Mr. Cyrus Field), and others. Honors were subsequently bestowed on some of the various gentlemen most immediately concerned in these--at last--wholly successful undertakings of 1865 and 1866, which left their results behind in complete and lasting form. CHAPTER XVIII SUBSEQUENT ATLANTIC LINES As a natural sequence other Atlantic cables followed in course of time.