The Story of the Atlantic Telegraph

"Airy tongues, that syllable men's names On sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses." These were also years of great progress, not only in the science of submarine telegraphy, but in the construction of deep-sea cables. In spite of the failure of that in the Red Sea, one was laid down in the Mediterranean, 1,535 miles long, from Malta to Alexandria, and another in the Persian Gulf, 1,400 miles long, by which telegraphic communication was finally opened from England to India. Others were laid in different seas and oceans in distant parts of the world. These great triumphs, following the scientific experiments which had been made, revived public confidence, and prepared the way for a fresh attempt to pass the Atlantic. Yet not much was done to renew the enterprise until 1862. Mr. Field had been indefatigable in his efforts to reanimate the Company. He was continually going back and forth to the British Provinces and to England, urging it wherever his voice could be heard. Yet times were adverse. The United States had been suddenly involved in a tremendous war, which called into the field hundreds of thousands of men, and entailed a burden of many hundreds of millions. While engaged in this life-and-death struggle, and rolling up a mountain of debt, our people had little thought to bestow on great enterprises by land or sea.