In a few hours we hope to reach our expectant friends in Valencia and to commence the great work in earnest.
"Our ship is crowded with engineers, and operators, and delegates from the Governments of Russia and France, and the deck is a bewildering mass of machinery, steam-engines, cog-wheels, breaks, boilers, ropes of hemp and ropes of wire, buoys and boys, pulleys and sheaves of wood and iron, cylinders of wood and cylinders of iron, meters of all kinds,-- anemometers, thermometers, barometers, electrometers,--steam-gauges, ships' logs--from the common log to Massey's log and Friend's log, to our friend Whitehouse's electro-magnetic log, which I think will prove to be the best of all, with a modification I have suggested.

Thus freighted we expect to disgorge most of our solid cargo before reaching mid-ocean.
"I am keeping ready to close this at a moment's warning, so give all manner of love to all friends, kisses to whom kisses are due.

I am getting almost impatient at the delays we necessarily encounter, but our great work must not be neglected.

I have seen enough to know now that the Atlantic Telegraph is sure to be established, _for it is practicable_." Was it a foreboding of what was to happen that caused him to add:-- "_We may not succeed in our first attempt_; some little neglect or accident may foil our present efforts, but the present enterprise will result in gathering stores of experience which will make the next effort certain.

Not that I do not expect success now, but accidental failure now will not be the evidence of its impracticability.
"Our principal electrical difficulty is the slowness with which we must manipulate in order to be intelligible; twenty words in sixteen minutes is now the rate.