Le Lyonnais, which was built in 1855 and was considered state-of-the-art at the time, was returning to France after completing its maiden voyage from Le Havre to New York when the disaster occurred.
Jennifer Sellitti of Atlantic Wreck Salvage, a New Jersey-based company, said a team on the dive boat D/V Tenacious discovered the wreckage of Le Lyonnais last month after a two-decade search.
Sellitti said divers positively identified the ship in waters 200 miles (320 kilometres) off of New Bedford, Massachusetts, in an area known as the Georges Bank. They are not revealing the exact location for now.
'She certainly doesn't look as good as she used to,' Sellitti told AFP. 'She was really broken apart.
'The North Atlantic is a brutal place to be a shipwreck storms, tides,' she said.
