When all the efforts of the electricians failed to draw more than a few faint whispers--a dying gasp from the depths of the sea--there ensued, in the public mind, a feeling of profound discouragement. But what a bitter disappointment for those officially concerned in the enterprise! In all the experience of life there are no sadder moments than those in which, after much anxious toil in striving for a great object, and after a glorious triumph, the achievement that seemed complete becomes a wreck. _Engineering Demonstration._--Still the engineer of this great undertaking had the satisfaction of knowing that he had demonstrated (1) the possibility of laying over 2,000 miles of cable in one continuous length across a by no means calm ocean at depths of two to three miles; and (2) that, by the agency of an electric current, distinct and regular signals could be transmitted and received throughout an insulated conductor, even when at such a depth beneath the sea, across this vast distance. The feasibility of either of these had been scouted at on all sides.[49] Of course the gutta-percha coverings as then applied can not be compared with the methods and materials of later days, though a great advance on that of previous cables. It was a pity that--owing to the precipitation with which the undertaking was rushed through, and the fear of failure for want of capital--more time was not given to the consideration of Bright's recommendation for a conductor four times larger, with a corresponding increase in the gutta-percha insulator. Under such conditions, it is highly improbable that high potentials would have ever been applied to the line. Unhappily--besides Faraday and Whitehouse--Professor Morse (when advising the Board in this matter) promulgated views directly opposed to the above, as has already been shown. In the course of his report Morse had said: That by the use of comparatively small-coated wires, and of electro-magnetic induction-coils for the exciting-magnets, telegraphic signals can be transmitted through two thousand miles, with a speed amply sufficient for all commercial and economical purposes.