Part 1 (1/2)

The Story of the Atlantic Telegraph

by Henry M (Henry Martyn) Field

PREFACE

The recent death of Mr Cyrus W Field recalls attention to the great enterprise hich his naraph,” said the late Chief Justice Chase, ”is the most wonderful achieveuished rank ah upon that illustrious roll will his name be placed, and there will it reraphs unite, mankind” The memory of such an achievement the world should not let die The story of its varied fortunes reads like a tale of adventure Froainst the elele the new generationlittle of the means by which it was attained What toil of hand and brain had gone before; what days and nights of watching and weariness; how often hope deferred had ed on, and seen the end still afar off--all that is dimly remembered, even by those who reap the fruits of victory And yet in the history of hus step by step, if ould learn the lesson they teach, that it is only out of heroic patience and perseverance that anything truly great is born

Twelve years of unceasing toil was the price the Atlantic Telegraph cost its projector; and not years lighted up by the assurance of success, but that were often darkened with despair: years in which he was restlessly crossing and recrossing the ocean, only to find on either side, worse than storms and tempests, an incredulity which sneered at every failure, and derided the attee could prevail but that faith, or fanaticis the incredible, achieves the impossible Such a tale, apart from the results, is in itself a lesson and an inspiration

In atte to chronicle all this, the relation of the writer to the pri the materials of an authentic history; but he trusts that it will not lead hirave, he has no wish to indulge in undue praise even of the beloved dead Enough for him is it to unroll the canvas on which the chief actor stands forth as the conspicuous figure But in a work of such h for all; and it is a sacred duty to the dead to recognize, as he did, as due to the brave companions in arms, who stood by him in disaster and defeat; who believed in him even when his own countrymen doubted and despaired; and furnished anew men and money and shi+ps for the final conquest of the sea If history records that the enterprise of the Atlantic Telegraph owed its inception to the faith and daring of an American, it will also record that all his ardor and activity would have been of no avail but for the science and sealand But when all these conditions were supplied, it is the testilishmen themselves that his was the spirit within the wheels that made them revolve; that it was his intense vitality that infused itself into a great organization, and made the dream of science the reality of the world This is not to his honor alone: it is a matter of national pride; and Americans may be pardoned if, in the year in which they celebrate the discovery of the continent, they recall that it was one of their countryht, pronounced ”the Colues across the Atlantic in pursuit of the great aith by his cable side the Old” How the es to tell

CHAPTER I

THE BARRIER OF THE SEA

When Columbus sailed from the shores of Spain, it was not in search of a New World, but only to find a nearer path to the East He sought a western passage to India He had adopted a traditionary belief that the earth was round; but he did not once dream of another continent than the three which had been the ancient abodes of the hureat deep The Florentine sage Toscanelli, froe of the world so far as then discovered, had made a chart, on which the eastern coast of Asia was represented as lying opposite to the western coast of both Europe and Africa Accepting this theory, Columbus reasoned that he could sail direct fro continent existed even in his iination Even after he had crossed the Atlantic, and descried the green woods of San Salvador rising out of the western seas, he thought he saw before him one of the islands of the Asiatic coast Cuba he believed was a part of theSoloe, he ca its hty flood into the Atlantic, he rejoiced that he had found the great river Gihon, which had its rise in the garden of Eden!

Even to the hour of his death, he renificent discovery It was reserved to later times to lift the curtain fully frolobe; and to unite the distant hereat discoverer never knew

It is hard to i over the face of the deep The ocean to the as a Mare Tenebrosuers dared to venture

Coluator of his ties to the Western Islands, to Madeira and the Canaries, to Iceland on the north, and to the Portuguese settlements in Africa But when he carope his way allimmered, like stars, on the pathless waters When he sailed on his voyage of discovery, he directed his course, first to the Canaries, which was a sort of outstation for the navigators of those times, as the last place at which they could take in supplies; and beyond which they were venturing into unknown seas Here he turned to the west, though inclining southward toward the tropics (for even the great discoverers of that day, in their search for new realms to conquer, were not above the consideration of riches as well as honor, and soold with torrid climes), and bore away for India!

Froator, he crossed the ocean in its widest part Had he, instead, followed the track of the Northmen, who crept around froht to the Azores, and then borne away to the north-west, he would much sooner have descried land fro in darkness, he crossed the Atlantic where it is broadest _and deepest_; where, as submarine explorers have since shown, it rolls over mountains, lofty as the Alps and the Himalayas, which lie buried beneath the surface of the deep But farther north the two continents, so widely sundered, incline toward each other, as if inviting that closer relation and freer intercourse which the fulness of ti

As the island of Newfoundland is to stand in the foreground of our story, we observe on the raphical position It holds the sa far out into the Atlantic, it is the vanguard of the western continent, or rather the signal-tower from which the New World land, and so near our coast, few Americans ever see it, as it lies out of the track of European coh they skirt the Banks of Newfoundland, pass to the south, and get but occasional gliives the country rather an ill reputation It has a rockbound coast, around which hang perpetual fogs and s drift slowly down, like huge phanto away to be dissolved by the warer away fro west fro the circuit of the island as far as the Straits of Belle Isle, one is often reminded of the most northern peninsula of Europe The rocky shores are indented with nu far up into the land, like the fiords along the coast of Norhile the large herds of Caribou deer, that are seen feeding on the hills, ht easily be mistaken for the flocks of reindeer that browse on the pastures and drink of the mountain torrents of ancient Scandinavia

The interior of the island is little known Not only is it uninhabited, it is almost unexplored, a boundless waste of rock and moor, where vast forests stretch out their unbroken solitudes, and the wild bird utters its lonely cry Bears and wolves roae and fierce black wolf; while of the smaller animals, whose skins furnish material for the fur-trade, such as reatest abundance But from all pests of the serpent tribe, Newfoundland is as free as Ireland, which was delivered by the prayers of St Patrick There is not a snake or a frog or a toad in the island!

Yet, even in this ruggedness of nature, there is a wild beauty, which only needs to be ”clothed upon” by the hand of man Newfoundland, in many of its features, is not unlike Scotland, even in its most desolate portions, where the rocky surface of the country, covered with thick rant Scot of the heather on his nativeas Loch Lomond, and mountains as lofty as Ben Lomond and Ben Nevis There are passes as wild as the Vale of Glencoe, where one hlands, while the roar of the torrents yet more vividly recalls the

Land of the brown heath and shaggy wood, Land of theto repel huht be transformed into fruitful fields

We think it a very cold country, where winter reigns over half the year, as in Greenland; yet it is not so far north as Scotland, nor is its climate more inhospitable It only needs the same population, the same hardy toil: and the sareen and beautiful the loneliest of Scottish glens

But at present the country is a _terra incognita_ In the interior there are no towns and no roads As yet almost the whole wealth of the island is drawn from the sea Its chief trade is its fisheries, and the only places of importance are a few srown up around the trading posts Besides these, the only settle the coast Hence the bishop of the island, when he would ed to sail around his diocese in his yacht, since even on horseback it would not be possible to h the dense forests to the reested the idea of cutting across the island a nearer way, not only for internal intercourse, but for those ere passing to and fro on the sea

It was in one of these excursions around the coast that the good Bishop Mullock, the head of the Ro the western portion of his diocese, lying one day becalht of Cape North, the extreht hiht be benefited by being taken into the track of communication between Europe and America He sa nature had provided an easy approach to the mainland on the west About sixtyisland of Cape Breton, while, as a stepping-stone, the little island of St Paul's lay between So ot back to St John's, he wrote a letter to one of the papers on the subject As this was the first suggestion of a telegraph across Newfoundland, his letter is here given in full:

_To the Editor of the Courier_:

Sir: I regret to find that, in every plan for transatlantic communication, Halifax is always mentioned, and the natural capabilities of Newfoundland entirely overlooked This has been deeply impressed on my mind by the coarding telegraphic coland and Ireland, in which it is said that the nearest telegraphic station on the American side is Halifax, twenty-one hundred and fifty-five miles from the west of Ireland Noould it not be well to call the attention of England and America to the extraordinary capabilities of St