The Story of the Atlantic Telegraph

This is a testimony most honorable to the engineer who first led the way through a pathless wilderness. But this Newfoundland scheme is not to be confounded with that of the Atlantic Telegraph, which did not come into existence until a year or two later. The latter was not at all included in the former. Indeed, Mr. Gisborne himself says, in a letter referring to his original project: "My plans were to run a subterranean line from Cape Race to Cape Ray, fly carrier-pigeons and run boats across the Straits of Northumberland to Cape Breton, and thence by overland lines convey the news to New York." He adds however: "Meanwhile Mr. Brett's experimental cable between Dover and Calais having proved successful, I set forth in my report, [which appeared a year after his first proposal], that 'carrier-pigeons and boats would be required only until such time as the experiments then making in England with submarine cables should warrant a similar attempt between Cape Ray and Cape Breton.'" But nowhere in his report does he allude to the possibility of ever spanning the mighty gulf of the Atlantic. But several years after, when the temporary success of the Atlantic Telegraph gave a name to everybody connected with it, he or his friends seemed not unwilling to have it supposed that this was embraced in the original scheme. When asked why he did not publish his large design to the world, he answered: "Because I was looked upon as a wild visionary by my friends, and pronounced a fool by my relatives for resigning a lucrative government appointment in favor of such a laborious speculation as the Newfoundland connection. Now had I coupled it at that time with an Atlantic line, all confidence in the prior undertaking would have been destroyed, and my object defeated." This may have been a reason for not announcing such a project to the public, but not for withholding it from his friends. A man can hardly lay claim to that which he holds in such absolute reserve.