Some minutes afterwards they discovered the existence of a large hole, two yards in diameter, in the ship's bottom.

Such a leak could not be stopped; and the Scotia, her paddles half submerged, was obliged to continue her course.

She was then three hundred miles from Cape Clear, and, after three days' delay, which caused great uneasiness in Liverpool, she entered the basin of the company.
The engineers visited the Scotia, which was put in dry dock.

They could scarcely believe it possible; at two yards and a half below water-mark was a regular rent, in the form of an isosceles triangle.
The broken place in the iron plates was so perfectly defined that it could not have been more neatly done by a punch.

It was clear, then, that the instrument producing the perforation was not of a common stamp and, after having been driven with prodigious strength, and piercing an iron plate 1 3/8 inches thick, had withdrawn itself by a backward motion.
Such was the last fact, which resulted in exciting once more the torrent of public opinion.