3-017-154 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Laying of the Atlantic Telegraph Cable: watching the Caroline going out to sea with the shore end of the cable, 1865. Engraving from a sketch by Robert Dudley. '...the country people...[were] manifesting the keenest interest in the proceedings of the day...On shore, where a trench, 2 ft. deep, had been cut across the narrow beach and up the face of the cliff, to receive the cable, a hundred or more of the country people...were pulling and shouting in their Irish fashion, with the utmost enthusiasm...When the cable had been underran, hauled into the boats again, and the shore end really began to come on land, and was stowed away in gigantic circles at the foot of the cliff, the scene was one of extraordinary animation. Numbers of men were in the water up to their waists...easing the cable over the rocks, while along the steep path up the cliffs was a close row of figures, men and boys, of every rank, from the well-to-do farmer down to the poorest cottier, all pulling at the cable with a will...By twelve o'clock the cable was well up the groove which had been cut in the face of the cliff for its reception; and from this point the work of carrying its massive coils across the meadows to the Telegraph House beyond was soon accomplished'. From "Illustrated London News", 1865.