The Story of the Atlantic Telegraph

FOOTNOTES: [A] The spot chosen as the terminus of the Atlantic cable, with the views around it--both on the water and on land--is thus described by a correspondent: "All who have visited Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, with one consent allow it to be one of the most beautiful sheets of water they ever set eyes upon. Its color is very peculiar--an inexpressible mingling of the pure blue ocean with the deep evergreen woodlands and the serene blue sky. Its extreme length is about eighty miles, its breadth about thirty miles, opening boldly into the Atlantic on the northern side of the island. At its south-western shore it branches into the Bay of Bull's Arm, which is a quiet, safe, and beautiful harbor, about two miles in breadth, and nine or ten in length, running in a direction north-west. "The depth of water is sufficient for the largest vessels. The tide rises seven or eight feet, and the bay terminates in a beautiful sand-beach. The shore is clothed with dark green fir-trees, which, mixed with birch and mountain-ash, present a pleasing contrast. The land rises gradually from the water all around, so as to afford one of the most agreeable town sites in the island. You ascend only about a quarter of a mile from the water, and there are no longer trees, but wild grass like an open prairie. Here are found at this season myriads of the upland cranberries, upon which unnumbered ptarmigan, or the northern partridge, feed. "The raspberry, bake-apple berry, and the whortleberry are also common. Numerous little lakes may be seen in the open, elevated ground, from which flow rivulets, affording abundance of fine trout. After ascending for about a mile and a half, you are then probably three hundred or four hundred feet above the tide, and nothing can exceed the beauty of the scene when, at one view, you behold the placid waters of both Trinity and Placentia Bays--the latter sprinkled with clusters of verdant islands.