The Atlantic Telegraph Cable Fleet Assembled at Berehaven (Southwest Coast of Ireland) : Ships, the Great Eastern, H. M. S. Terrible, the Alby, the Medway and the William Cory, 1866, Watercolor over graphite with touches of gouache, Sheet: 12 13/16 ? 21 5/16 in. (32. 6 ? 54. 2 cm), Drawings, Robert Charles Dudley (British, 1826?1909), One of the 19th century's great technological achievements was to lay a telegraphic cable beneath the Atlantic, allowing messages to speed back and forth between North America and Europe in minutes, rather than ten or twelve days by steamer