The Old Frigate Iris with Her Freight of Cable Alongside the Great Eastern at Sheerness: The Cable Passed from the Hulk to the Great Eastern, 1865, Watercolor over graphite with touches of gouache, Sheet: 6 7/16 ? 9 11/16 in. (16. 3 ? 24. 6 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