Instead of following the road to Sheffield, the southernmost and the oldest town in the county, we turned westward into the Egremont road, in order to ascend the Taconac. Three miles brought us to the neat little village of Egremont, and two more to Guilder Hollow, when we turned into one of the gorges of the mountain. Here we found a tolerable road, made along one of the streams, and followed it eight miles.

The Taconac is an immense pile, advanced into the valley of the Housatonic, and terminating a chain that stretches from the Highlands of the Hudson to the northeast. Its shape is remarkable: there is an exterior ridge, nearly straight on the eastern side, and semicircular on the others, from which rise several peaks at intervals, like towers from a battlement. Within this exterior wall is a large plain, cultivated and inhabited, constituting the township of Mount Washington. The people were now in the fields gathering in their hay. We envied them their summers, passed in this elastic atmosphere, whatever we might think of their winters. The air was ethereal, and the thin, white clouds sailed past so near to us that it seemed as if we might almost throw a stone into them. But to the Dome.

From the center of the eastern ridge a single peak rises higher than all the rest by several hundred feet, shaped like a dome. Its highest point is twenty-six hundred feet above the valley. We left our wagon in the road, and walked a mile or so by an easy path through the woods to the base of the Dome. Here the scramble began, and a hard one it was, up a steep, rocky path, among the whortleberries and stunted pines. Half an hour sufficed for it, however, and we then found ourselves on a platform of bald rock, lifted far into the air above everything around us-everything, indeed, nearer than the Greylock and the Catskills. The first exclamation of "Oh, how grand!" was followed by long, silent gazing on the magnificent panorama. It is not so vast as that of the Greylock, but more beautiful, because the country around it is richer.

The Catskills, of course, bounded the horizon on the west, and the intervening country lay beneath us like a garden. We thought we could trace the Hudson, a bright line, at the foot of the mountains. And there, on the north and east, lay

Berkshire. All its fair scenes, from the Greylock hither, were spread out as on a map-its fifty lakes, its hills, and its rejoicing river. And close beneath us, to the south, lay the twin lakes of Salisbury, two gems. But words can not give you what the eye takes in. Come and see.

In the eastern ridge, four miles from the Dome, is a narrow gorge, where a mountain-stream leaps down and makes the Falls of the Taconac. The inhabitants call them the Bashbish, or simply the Bash. We prefer calling them the Falls of the Taconac. We drove rapidly across the plain, and then walked a mile and a half to the falls. It is not so much the fall of water, as the wild sublimity of the gorge, that will strike you. The mountain is rent, and the stream rushes down the cleft among the fallen rocks, in successive leaps, which are in all, perhaps, a hundred and fifty feet. On one side the rock projects twenty-five feet over the fall, a dark, frowning mass of rock, nearly two hundred feet high, where the eagles used to build, and hence called the "Eagle's Nest." From the edge of this cliff you may stretch forward and look down into the gulf below-a dizzy height—and you may look westward, over the whole country between you and the Catskills. Here we stood, looking at the long blue line of mountain, as the sun went down behind it, and so ended our "journey of a day."

THE ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH CABLE.

On the 5th of August, 1858, the first Atlantic telegraph cable was laid. The event was celebrated on the 1st of September following, under the direction of the Common Council of the city of New York. Mr. Field was chosen the orator for the occasion, and delivered the following address before a vast assemblage in the Crystal Palace.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: When Morse discovered the applicability of electricity to the communication of intelligence, it might have been foreseen that the limits of the application were to be measured only by the power of stretching the elec tric wire, and of transmitting through it the electric current. It occurred, no doubt, to different minds that the telegraph would one day be carried across the ocean and around the globe; and, for aught I know, plans may have been formed for doing the work. I have been requested to give you the history-a condensed epitome it must be-of the first success—the first attempt, and, I might add, the first practicable plan, in the development of this great idea of an ocean telegraph. My connection with the undertaking from its commencement-my position as counsel for those who have done the most to carry it through-have made it appear to others fitting that I should perform this service. In its performance I trust that I shall say nothing unbefitting my personal relations to any of the actors. I am not here to praise, but to relate.

Two years previous to 1854 there had been incorporated by the Legislature of Newfoundland a company by the name of the Newfoundland Electric Telegraph Company, the purpose of which was to connect by telegraph that island with the main-land of America. A telegraph across the ocean was not a part of the scheme. It contemplated a connection with Europe by means of steamers plying between Newfoundland and Ireland.

This company proceeded a little way and failed, leaving a debt of some fifty thousand dollars, due chiefly to laborers.

In this emergency, and some time in February, 1854, Mr. Horace B. Tebbetts and Mr. Frederick N. Gisborne, officers then of that company, applied to Mr. Matthew D. Field to help raise additional funds by a sale of bonds or stock. The gentleman thus applied to came to Mr. Cyrus W. Field and myself. We had several conversations together on the subject. Then it was that the thought of extending the line across the Atlantic suggested itself. Mr. Cyrus W. Field wrote to Lieutenant Maury to inquire about the practicability of submerging a cable, and consulted Professor Morse about the possibility of telegraphing through it. Their answers

were favorable.

On receiving them, it was agreed between Mr. Cyrus W. Field and myself that, as nothing could be done under the charter of the Newfoundland Electric Company, we would endeavor to form a new company, to take a surrender of the charter of the former company, purchase its property, pay its debts, and obtain another charter to effect a direct telegraphic communication with Europe. The first step was to procure the coöperation of a few persons whose character and resources would be a guarantee that the work had been undertaken in earnest. Four men were invited, whose names you all knowPeter Cooper, Moses Taylor, Marshall O. Roberts, and Chandler White. They met Mr. Cyrus W. Field and myself at his house, where, around a table covered with maps, plans, and estimates, the subject was discussed for four successive evenings, the practicability of the undertaking examined, its advantages, its cost, and the means of its accomplishment. The result of the conference was the agreement of all the six gentlemen to enter upon the undertaking. Mr. Cyrus W. Field, Mr. White, and myself were to proceed to Newfoundland to procure a charter and such aid in money and privileges as the government of that island could be induced to give. The agreement with the Electric Telegraph Company, and the formal surrender of its charter, were signed on the 10th of March, and on the 14th we left New York, accompanied by Mr. Gisborne. The next morning we took the steamer at Boston for Halifax, and thence, on the night of the 18th, departed in the little steamer Merlin for St. John's, Newfoundland.

Three more disagreeable days' voyage scarcely ever passed than we spent in that smallest of steamers. It seemed as if all the storms of winter had been reserved for the first month of spring. A frost-bound coast, an icy sea, rain, hail, snow, and tempest, were the greeting of the telegraph adventurers in their first movement toward Europe. In the darkest night, through which no man could see the ship's length, with snow filling the air and flying into the eyes of the sailors, with ice in the water, and a heavy sea rolling and moaning about us, the captain felt his way around Cape Race with his lead, as the blind man feels his way with his staff, but as confidently and as safely as if the sky had been clear and the sea calm; and the light of morning dawned upon deck and mast and spar, coated with glittering ice, but floating securely between the mountain gates of the harbor of St. John's.

In that busy and hospitable town the first person to whom we were introduced was Mr. Edward M. Archibald, then Attorney-General of the colony, and now British Consul in New York. He entered warmly into our views, and from that day to this has been an efficient and consistent supporter of the undertaking. By him we were introduced to the Governor (Kerr Bailey Hamilton), who also took an earnest interest in our plans. He convoked the Council to receive us and hear an explanation of our views and wishes. In a few hours after the conference the answer of the Governor and Council was received, consenting to recommend to the Assembly a guarantee of the interest of fifty thousand pounds of bonds, an immediate grant of fifty square miles of land, a further grant to the same extent on the completion of the telegraph across the ocean, and a payment of five thousand pounds toward the construction of a bridle-path across the island, along the line of the land telegraph.

Mr. Cyrus W. Field thereupon, on the 25th of March, took the return steamer from St. John's, on his way to New York, in order to fit out a steamer for the service of the company, while his two associates remained in Newfoundland to obtain the charter and carry out the arrangements with the former company. They continued there nearly five weeks, during which, after many discussions and negotiations, the charter was at length