The successful laying of the cable was hailed with the liveliest joy on both sides of the Atlantic, and those who had participated in it were regarded as heroes. But great as was the achievement, it was not destined to be a lasting success. After working for four weeks, the electric current suddenly ceased on the 1st of September. It never worked perfectly at any period of its existence, but it did transmit a number of messages with intelligibleness, and thus put an end to all doubt in the minds of the scientific men of the expedition of the feasibility of laying a successful line across the ocean.
The public generally and the directors of the company were greatly disappointed, and many of-the latter and nearly all of the former declared that all such attempts must of necessity fail. Some persons even went so far as to avow their belief that the statements as to the successful transmission of signals over the wire were false; but the proofs that the wire did work properly for awhile are too strong to allow us to accord the slightest weight to this disbelief. But whether signals had passed over the wire or not, there could be no doubt that the cable had ceased to respond to the efforts of the electricians, and was a total