The Story of the Atlantic Telegraph

After two or three days' delay at St. John's, which the Niagara was obliged to make for coal, but which the people spent in festivity and rejoicing, she left for New York, where she arrived on the eighteenth--two weeks from the landing of the cable in Trinity Bay. These had been weeks of great excitement, yet not unmingled with suspense and anxiety. The public, eager for news, devoured every thing that concerned the telegraph with impatience, but all was not satisfactory. Despatches from Trinity Bay said that signals were continually passing over the cable, yet no news reached the public from the other side of the Atlantic. This was partially explained by a message from Mr. Field, sent from Trinity Bay to the Associated Press as early as the seventh: "We landed here in the woods, and until the telegraph instruments are perfectly adjusted, no communications can pass between the two continents; but the electric currents are received freely. "You shall have the earliest intimation when all is ready, but it may be some days before every thing is perfected. The first through message between Europe and America will be from the Queen of Great Britain to the President of the United States, and the second his reply." But as the public grew impatient, and friends sent anxious inquiring messages, he telegraphed again from St. John's on the eleventh: "Before I left London, the Directors of the Atlantic Telegraph Company decided unanimously that, after the cable was laid, and the Queen's and President's messages transmitted, the line should be kept for several weeks for the sole use of Dr. Whitehouse, Professor Thomson, and other electricians, to enable them to test thoroughly their several modes of telegraphing, so that the Directors might decide which was the best and most rapid method for future use: for it was considered that after the line should be once thrown open for business, it would be very difficult to obtain it for experimental purposes, even for a short time.