CONTENTS
| [CHAPTER I.] | Page [1] | |
| Discovery of the New World by Columbus.Relative Position of the Two Hemispheres. Nearest Points—The Outlying Islands, Ireland and Newfoundland.Shorter Route to Europe suggested by Bishop Mullock. The Electric Telegraph Company of Newfoundland.Project of Mr. F. N. Gisborne. Failure of the Company | ||
| [CHAPTER II.] | Page [15] | |
| Mr. Gisborne comes to New York. Is introduced to Cyrus W.Field, who conceives the Idea of a Telegraph across theAtlantic Ocean. Is it Practicable? Two Elements to bemastered, the Sea and the Electric Current. Letters ofLieutenant Maury and Professor Morse | ||
| [CHAPTER III.] | Page [24] | |
| Mr. Field enlists Capitalists in the Enterprise. Commissionto Newfoundland to obtain a Charter. The New York,Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company | ||
| [CHAPTER IV.] | Page [38] | |
| The Land-Line in Newfoundland. Four Hundred Miles of Roadto be built, a Work of Two Years. Attempt to lay a Cableacross the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in 1855, fails. A SecondAttempt, in 1856, is successful | ||
| [CHAPTER V.] | Page [51] | |
| Deep-Sea Soundings by Lieutenant Berryman in the Dolphin in1853, and the Arctic in 1856, and by Commander Dayman, ofthe British Navy, in the Cyclops, in 1857. The Bed of theAtlantic. The Telegraphic Plateau | ||
| [CHAPTER VI.] | Page [69] | |
| Mr. Field in London. The English Engineers andElectricians. Result of Experiments. The Atlantic TelegraphCompany organized. Applies to the Government for Aid.Contract for a Cable | ||
| [CHAPTER VII.] | Page [91] | |
| Mr. Field returns to America. Seeks Aid from theGovernment. Opposition in Congress. Bill passed | ||
| [CHAPTER VIII.] | Page [112] | |
| Return to England. The Niagara—Captain Hudson. TheAgamemnon. Expedition of 1857 sails from Ireland. Speech ofthe Earl of Carlisle. The Cable broken | ||
| [CHAPTER IX.] | Page [142] | |
| Preparations for an Expedition in 1858. Mr. Field is madethe General Manager of the Company. The Squadron assembleat Plymouth, and put to Sea, June 10. New Method of layingCable, beginning in Mid-Ocean. The Agamemnon in Danger ofbeing Foundered. The Cable lost Three Times. The Shipsreturn to England. Meeting of the Directors. Shall theyabandon the Project? One Last Effort | ||
| [CHAPTER X.] | Page [165] | |
| Second Expedition Successful. Cable landed in Ireland andNewfoundland | ||
| [CHAPTER XI.] | Page [188] | |
| Great Excitement in America. Celebration in New York andother Cities | ||
| [CHAPTER XII.] | Page [213] | |
| Sudden Stoppage of the Cable. Reaction of Public Feeling.Suspicions of Bad Faith. Did the Cable ever work? | ||
| [CHAPTER XIII.] | Page [229] | |
| Attempts to revive the Company. The Government asked forAid, but declines to give an Unconditional Guarantee.Failure of the Red Sea Telegraph. Scientific Experiments.Cables laid in the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf.Brief History of the next Five Years | ||
| [CHAPTER XIV.] | Page [241] | |
| The Enterprise renewed. Improvement on the Old Cable. TheGreat Eastern and Captain Anderson. Expedition of 1865.Twelve Hundred Miles laid safely, when the Cable is broken | ||
| [CHAPTER XV.] | Page [293] | |
| Formation of a New Company, the Anglo-American. New Cablemade and shipped on Board the Great Eastern | ||
| [CHAPTER XVI.] | Page [306] | |
| The Expedition of 1866. Immense Preparations. ReligiousService at Valentia. Sailing of the Fleet. Diary of theVoyage. Cable landed at Heart's Content | ||
| [CHAPTER XVII.] | Page [347] | |
| Return to Mid-Ocean to search for the Cable lost the Yearbefore. Dragging in the Deep Sea. Repeated Failures. Cablefinally recovered and completed to Newfoundland | ||
| [CHAPTER XVIII.] | Page [376] | |
| The Afterglow. Honors conferred in England and America.Commercial Revolution wrought by the Cable. Mr. Field andthe Elevated Railroads in New York City. Tour round theWorld. Last Years. Death in 1892 | ||
STORY OF THE ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH
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 human race—Europe, Asia, and Africa. All the rest was the great deep. The Florentine sage Toscanelli, from his knowledge 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 from Spain to India. No intervening continent existed even in his imagination. 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 the mainland of India; Hayti was the Ophir of King Solomon; and when, on a later voyage, he came to the broad mouth of the Orinoco, and saw it pouring its mighty 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 remained ignorant of the real extent of his magnificent discovery. It was reserved to later times to lift the curtain fully from the world of waters; to reveal the true magnitude of the globe; and to unite the distant hemispheres by ties such as the great discoverer never knew.
It is hard to imagine the darkness and the terror which then hung over the face of the deep. The ocean to the west was a Mare Tenebrosum—a Sea of Darkness, into which only the boldest voyagers dared to venture. Columbus was the most successful navigator of his time. He had made voyages to the Western Islands, to Madeira and the Canaries, to Iceland on the north, and to the Portuguese settlements in Africa. But when he came to cross the sea, he had to grope his way almost blindly. But a few rays of knowledge glimmered, 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 somehow associated gems and gold with torrid climes), and bore away for India!
From this route taken by the great navigator, he crossed the ocean in its widest part. Had he, instead, followed the track of the Northmen, who crept around from Iceland to Greenland and Labrador; or had he sailed straight to the Azores, and then borne away to the north-west, he would much sooner have descried land from the mast-head. But steering 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 time was to bring.