Other experiments were tried, such as splicing the cable, and lowering it to the bottom of the sea--an operation which it was thought might be critical in mid-ocean, but which was performed without difficulty--and running out the cable at a rapid rate, when the speed of the ship was increased to seven knots, without causing the cable to break, or even to kink. On the whole, the result of the trip was satisfactory. The paying-out machine of Mr. Everett worked well, and the electric continuity through the whole cable was perfect. It was on this expedition that was used for the first time the marine mirror galvanometer of Professor Thomson, by whom it had been invented for marine testing within the previous four weeks, and which afterwards proved an instrument so important to the success of ocean telegraphy. After these experiments the squadron returned to Plymouth. As it happened, the present writer had just arrived in England, and landing at Falmouth, hastened to Plymouth, where the ships were lying in the Sound. It was Saturday, the fifth of June, and the next day, by invitation of Captain Hudson, he conducted Divine service on the Niagara, where an awning was spread over the quarter-deck, round which were grouped the officers of the ship, behind whom were crowded four or five hundred seamen. If it was a pleasure in such circumstances to speak to one's countrymen, it was not less to be received with equal kindness on board the Agamemnon. To see these two mighty ships of war, with their consorts, lying side by side, not with guns run out, but engaged in a mission of peace, seemed indeed an omen of the good time coming, when nations shall learn war no more. Among the matters of personal solicitude and anxiety at this time--next to the success of the expedition--was Mr. Field himself. He was working with an activity which was unnatural--which could only be kept up by great excitement, and which involved the most serious danger. The strain on the man was more than the strain on the cable, and we were in fear that both would break together. Often he had no sleep, except such as he caught flying on the railway. Indeed, when we remonstrated, he said he could rest better there than anywhere else, for then he was not tormented with the thought of any thing undone. For the time being he could do no more; and putting his head in the cushioned corner of the carriage, he got an hour or two of broken sleep.