The Great Eastern Laying the Atlantic Cable.
Although inter-continental communication had been actually opened, the
cable did not work, nor did ocean cabling become a successful and
regular business till 1866, when a new cable was laid. This event
attracted the more attention from the fact that the largest ship ever
built was used in paying out the cable. It was the Great Eastern, 680
feet long and 83 broad, with 25,000 tons displacement.
Sounding Machine used by a Cable Expedition.
Street railways became common in our largest cities before 1860, the
first in New England, that between Boston and Cambridge, dating from
1856. Sleeping-cars began to be used in 1858. The express business went
on developing, being opened westward from Buffalo first in 1845. A steam
fire-engine was tried in New York in 1841, but the invention was
successful only in 1853. Baltimore used one in 1858. Goodyear
triumphantly vulcanized rubber in 1844, making serviceable a gum which
had been used in various forms already but without ability to stand
heat. Elias Howe took out his first patent for a sewing machine in 1846,
being kept in vigorous fight against infringements for the next eight
years. The anaesthetic power of ether was discovered in 1844.
Gutta-percha was first imported hither in 1847. The first application of
the Bessemer steel process in this country was made in New Jersey in
1856, the manufacture of watches by machinery begun in 1857,
photo-lithography in 1859. New York had a clearing house in 1853, Boston
in 1855. The petroleum business may with propriety be dated from 1860,
although the existence of oil in Northwestern Pennsylvania had been long
known, and some use made of it since 1826. For several years experiments
had been making in refining the oil. The excellence of the light from it
now drew attention to the value of the product, wells began to be bored
and oil land sold for fabulous prices.
Cyrus W. Field.
Paying out Cable Gear. From Chart House.
We close this chapter with a word about the painful financial crisis
that swept over the country in the autumn of 1857. Its causes are
somewhat occult, but two appear to have been the chief, viz., the
over-rapid building of railroads and the speculation induced by the
prosperity and the rise of prices incident to the new output of gold.
Interest on the best securities rose to three, four, and five per cent.
a month. On ordinary securities no money at all could be had. Commercial
houses of the highest repute went down. The climax was in September and
October. The three leading banks in Philadelphia suspended specie
payments, at once followed in this by all the banks of the Middle
States, and upon the 13th of the next month by the New York banks.
Manufacturing was very largely abandoned for the time, at least thirty
thousand operatives being thrown out of work in New York City alone.
Prices even of agricultural produce fell enormously. Tramps were to be
met on every road. Easier times fortunately returned by spring, when
business resumed pretty nearly its former prosperous march.
Shore End of Cable-exact size. [About 3.5 inches in diameter.]
