The Story of the Atlantic Telegraph

"In this view of the subject, and for the purpose of hastening the completion of such a line, I take the liberty of suggesting for your consideration the propriety of an offer from the proper source, of a prize to the company through whose telegraphic wire the first message shall be passed across the Atlantic. "I have the honor to be respectfully yours. "M. F. Maury, "Lieutenant United States Navy. "Hon. J. C. Dobbin, Secretary of the Navy." The reply of Professor Morse showed equal interest in the subject, in proof of which he wrote that he would come down to New York to see Mr. Field about it. A few days after he came, and saw Mr. Field at his house. This was the beginning of an acquaintance which soon ripened into friendship, and which henceforth united these gentlemen together in this great achievement. Professor Morse, in conversation, entered at length into the laws of electricity as applied to the business of telegraphing, and concluded by declaring his entire faith in the undertaking as practical; as one that might, could, and would, be achieved. Indeed, this faith he had avowed years before. In a letter written as early as August tenth, 1843, to John C. Spencer, then Secretary of the Treasury, Professor Morse had detailed the results of certain experiments made in the harbor of New York to show the power of electricity to communicate at great distances, at the close of which he says--in words that now seem prophetic: