query: What was the SS Great Eastern used for?
passage: SS Great Eastern
Brunel knew her affectionately as the "Great Babe". He died in 1859 shortly after her ill-fated maiden voyage, during which she was damaged by an explosion. After repairs, she plied for several years as a passenger liner between Britain and North America before being converted to a cable-laying ship and laying the first lasting transatlantic telegraph cable in 1866.[4] Finishing her life as a floating music hall and advertising hoarding (for the famous department store Lewis's) in Liverpool, she was broken up on Merseyside in 1889.
passage: HMS Iris (1840)
Together with HMS "Amethyst", she was loaned by the Admiralty to the Atlantic Telegraph Company in 1864 and both ships were then extensively modified in 1865 for ferrying the Atlantic cable from the manufacturer's works at Enderby's Wharf, in East Greenwich, London, to the "Great Eastern" at her Sheerness mooring. The cable was coiled down into great cylindrical tanks at the wharf before being fed into the "Great Eastern". "Amethyst" and "Iris" transferred 2,500 miles (4,000 km) of cable to "Great Eastern", in an operation that took over three months, beginning in February 1865.