everything goes on regularly and satisfactorily. You are aware we cannot
stop night nor day in paying out. On Saturday we made our calculations
that the first great coil, which is upon the main deck, would be
completely paid out, and one of our critical movements, to wit, the
change from this coil to the next, which is far forward, would be made by
seven or eight o'clock yesterday morning (Sunday). So we were up and
watching the last flake of the first coil gradually diminishing.
Everything had been well prepared; the men were at their posts; it was an
anxious moment lest a kink might occur. But, as the last round came up,
the motion of the ship was slightly slackened, the men handled the slack
cable handsomely, and in two minutes the change was made with perfect
order, and the paying out from the second coil was as regularly commenced
and at this moment continues, and at an increased rate to-day of five
miles per hour.

"Last night, however, was another critical moment. On examining our chart
of soundings we found the depth of the ocean gradually increasing up to
about four hundred fathoms, and then the chart showed a sudden and great
increase to seventeen hundred fathoms, and then a further increase to two
thousand and fifty, nearly the greatest depth with which we should meet
in the whole distance. We had, therefore, to watch the effect of this
additional depth upon the straining of the cable. At two in the morning
the effect showed itself in a greater strain and a more rapid tendency to
run fast. We could check its speed, but it is a dangerous process. _Too
sudden a check would inevitably snap the cable_. Too slack a rein would
allow of its egress at such a wasting rate and at such a violent speed
that we should lose too great a portion of the cable, and its future
stopping within controllable limits be almost impossible. Hence our
anxiety. All were on the alert; our expert engineers applied the brakes
most judiciously, and at the moment I write--latitude 52° 28'--the cable