CHAPTER I
EVOLUTION OF ATLANTIC TELEGRAPHY IN AMERICA AND ENGLAND
Gradual Evolution—The Projectors—Survey of the Route—Soundings—Nature of the Ocean Bed—Formation of the Atlantic Telegraph Company—Raising Capital—Critics, “Croakers,” and Crude Inventors.
As has been shown in the introductory chapter, the efforts of the early projectors of submarine telegraphy were at first confined to connecting countries divided only by narrow seas, or establishing communication between points on the same seaboard. The next step forward, with which we are here immediately concerned—that of spanning the Atlantic Ocean between Europe and America—was aptly characterized at the time as “the great feat of the century.” By its means the people of the two great continents were to speak together in a few moments, though separated by a vast ocean.
This was the first venture in transoceanic telegraphy. There was no applicable data to go upon; for the vast difference between laying short cable-lengths across rivers, bays, etc., in shallow water, and that of laying a long length of cable in depths of over two miles across an open ocean will be easily recognized—at any rate, by the sailor and engineer.
The wires of the Magnetic Telegraph Company{28} had already been carried to various points on the west and south coast of Ireland; and, in 1852, Mr. F. N. Gisborne, a very able English engineer, obtained an exclusive concession for connecting St. Johns, Newfoundland, with Cape Ray, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, by an overhead telegraph-line. The idea was to “tap” steamers coming from London to Cape Race at St. Johns, and pass messages between that point and Cape Breton, on the other side of the Gulf, by carrier-pigeons. A few miles of cables were made in England, and laid between Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick. Mr. Gisborne then surveyed the route for the land-line across Newfoundland, and had erected some forty miles of it, when the work was stopped for want of funds. When in New York in 1854, Gisborne was introduced to Mr. Cyrus West Field, a retired merchant, who became enthusiastic on the subject, and formed a small, but strong, syndicate for the practical realization of Gisborne’s scheme. A cable eighty-five miles in length was made in England, to be laid between Cape Breton and Newfoundland; but after forty miles had been paid out, rough weather ensued, and the undertaking had to be abandoned. A fresh instalment was, however, sent out in 1856, and successfully laid across the Gulf, thus connecting St. Johns with Canada and the American lines. The conductor of this line instead of being a single solid wire was, for the first time, composed of several small wires laid up together in strand form—with a view to avoiding a flaw in any single wire stopping the conductivity, besides affording increased mechanical pliability.{29}
