Page:Ballantyne--The Battery and the Boiler.djvu/135

 the matter on, was one of ten subscribers who each contributed £10,000. Thus £230,500 were privately subscribed before a prospectus was issued.

Our little hero was at the laying of that (1866) cable, when the same great ship, with the same captain and most of the engineers and electricians who had gone out on the previous voyage, landed the end of the 1820-mile rope on the shores of Newfoundland, on Friday, 27th July. He cheered with the rest in wild enthusiasm when the Great Eastern dropped anchor in "Heart's Content." He accompanied Captain Anderson and the officers of the fleet when they went in a body to the little church there, to thank God for the successful completion of the great enterprise. He was present when the big ship, having received from other ships 8000 tons of coal, and some six hundred miles of the old cable, went back to mid-ocean to grapple for the lost cable of 1865. He assisted and watched with the deepest interest the amazing efforts of scientific and mechanical power put forth in the mere matter of dragging for the cable from the bottom, and observed with reverence, amounting almost to awe, the great moving spirit of the whole affair, the indomitable Mr. Field, as he went to the bow and sat on the rope to feel the quiver which told him it was dragging the bottom of the sea two miles below. He was present, with blazing cheeks and eyes and