The first Atlantic cable, therefore, has accomplished a great work in deep-sea telegraphy, a branch of the art but little known before.  In one sense it was a failure.  In another it was a brilliant success.  Despite every disadvantage, it was laid across the ocean; it was stretched from shore to shore; and for three weeks it continued to operate,—­a time long enough to settle forever the scientific question whether it was possible to communicate between two continents so far apart.  This was the work of the first Atlantic telegraph; and if it lies silent at the bottom of the ocean till the destruction of the globe, it has done enough for the science of the world and the benefit of mankind to entitle it to be held in honored and blessed memory.

Now, as to the prospect of success in another attempt to lay a telegraph across the ocean.  The most erroneous opinions prevail as to the difficulties of laying submarine telegraphs in general, and securing them against injury.  It is commonly supposed that the number of failures is much greater than of successes; whereas the fact is, that the later attempts, where made with proper care, have been almost uniformly successful.  In proof of this I will refer to the printed “List of all the Submarine Telegraph-Cables manufactured and laid down by Messrs. Glass, Elliot, & Co., of London,” from which it appears that within the space of eight years, from 1854 to 1862, they have manufactured and laid down twenty-five different cables, among which are included three of the longest lines connecting England with the Continent,—­namely, from England to Holland, 140 miles, to Hanover, 280 miles, and to Denmark, 368 miles,—­and the principal lines in the Mediterranean,—­as from Italy to Corsica and thence to Toulon, from Malta to Sicily, and from Corfu to Otranto, and besides these, the two chief of all, that from France to Algiers, 520 miles, laid in 1860, and the other, laid only last year, from Malta to Alexandria, 1,535 miles!  All together the lines laid by these manufacturers comprise a total of 3,739 miles; and though some have been lying at the bottom of the sea and working for eight years, each one of them is at this hour in as perfect condition as on the day it was laid down, with the exception of the two short lines laid in shallow water along the shore between Liverpool and Holyhead, 25 miles, and from Prince Edward’s Island to New Brunswick, 11 miles; the latter of which was broken by a ship’s anchor, and the former by the anchor of the Royal Charter during the gale in which she was wrecked, both of which can be easily repaired.