obtained, and the fifty thousand dollars of debt of the old company were thereupon paid.

The charter was liberal and provident. After declaring that it was "advisable to establish a line of telegraphic communication between America and Europe, by way of Newfoundland," it incorporated the associates for fifty years, established perfect equality in respect to corporators and officers between citizens of the United States and British subjects, allowed the meetings of the stockholders and directors to be held in New York, or in Newfoundland, or in London, conceded the exclusive right to establish a telegraph from the continent of America to Newfoundland, and from Newfoundland across the ocean, granted fifty square miles of land, and further provided that," so soon as the said company shall have actually established a communication across the Atlantic Ocean, by means of a submarine cable or wire from this island, the said company shall receive from the government of this island a grant of fifty square miles of ungranted and unoccupied wilderness land, to be selected by the said company, in addition to the grants hereinbefore mentioned "-a provision subsequently extended so as to permit the company to establish the communication by an auxiliary or associate company.

It were long to tell how the government and people of Newfoundland nurtured this enterprise in its commencement, how they have stood by it, through its various fortunes, till its triumphant consummation. That vast island, projected into the North Atlantic, lifting above the sea its cliffs of everlasting and immovable rock, beckoning, as it were, to Europe, seems framed by Providence for one of the pillars of that cable which is to bind the continents together. Its broad interior, baffling the explorer, its cold and gloomy morasses, its dark and frowning headlands, its deep and tranquil bays, and harbors innumerable, take not such hold of the imagination as its support of that wondrous line which, lost for ever to human eyes, is to be the highway of thought between the Old World and the New.

Take the map, and see where the civilized portions of the two hemispheres approach nearest to each other: two islands stand there face to face. The highlands of Trinity answer to

the highlands of Valentia. Between them rolls the stormiest sea of all the world save one. It is the gateway through which pass the icebergs from the Pole. Once a year, and sometimes for forty days together, a continuous field of ice moves down from the north at the rate of two or three miles an hour. But far beneath there is tranquil water and an even surface. The plummet has sounded all that sea, and found, at an average depth of about two miles, a nearly level bottom covered with the smallest sea-shells, which must have been deposited in the lapse of ages and fallen through the still water as the snow falls through the still air.

In the early part of May the two gentlemen who had remained behind in Newfoundland rejoined their associates in New York, and there the charter was formally accepted and the company organized. As all the associates had not arrived till Saturday evening, the 6th of May, and as one of them was to leave town on the morning of Monday, it was agreed that we should meet for organization at six o'clock of that day. At that hour they came to my house, and, as the first rays of the morning sun streamed into the windows, the formal organization took place. The charter was accepted, the stock subscribed, and the officers chosen. Mr. Cooper, Mr. Taylor, Mr. Field, Mr. Roberts, and Mr. White were the first directors. Mr. Cooper was chosen president, Mr. White vice-president, and Mr. Taylor treasurer. Thus was inaugurated that great enterprise whose completion we celebrate to-day. The plan was formed, the arrangements made, and the work begun. What followed was the execution of the great design.

From the 8th of May, 1854, to the 5th of August, 1858, there passed scarcely four years and three months; but they were as fruitful of anxiety and toil as of successful results. The land line across the island of Newfoundland-upward of four hundred miles-was first to be made. This was a work of incredible labor. The country was for the most part a wilderness of rock and morass; "a good and traversable bridleroad eight feet wide," with bridges of the same width, had to be made the whole distance; materials and provisions had to be transported first from St. John's to the heads of the different bays on the southern coast, and afterward chiefly on men's

backs to the line of road. The first year Mr. White, as vicepresident, directed in person the operations; the second and third year superintendents were sent down. In addition to the land line in Newfoundland, another of one hundred and forty miles in Cape Breton was constructed, and contracts made with companies in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York, to connect their lines with the Newfoundland line. Then there was the submarine line between Newfoundland and Cape Breton, eighty-five miles in length, and another thirteen miles long, across Northumberland Straits, to Prince Edward Island. To procure these, Mr. Cyrus W. Field visited England twice-once in December, 1854, and again in January, 1856. The first attempt to lay the submarine line across the Gulf of St. Lawrence was made in 1855, and was unsuccessful. A second attempt, made the next year, succeeded. Thus was completed the chain of telegraph from New York to the eastern coast of Newfoundland, and the projectors now stood upon the shore of the Atlantic in their progress eastward.

The whole expense thus far, with very trifling exceptions, had fallen upon them; Mr. Cyrus W. Field having made the largest contributions-amounting to more than two hundred thousand dollars in money-and Mr. Cooper, Mr. Taylor, and Mr. Roberts each a little less. No other contributors beyond the six original subscribers had come in, except Professor Morse, Mr. Robert W. Lowber, Mr. Wilson G. Hunt, and Mr. John W. Brett. The list of directors and officers remains to this day as it was at first, except that Mr. Hunt, as director, has taken the place of Mr. White, who died in 1856, and that Mr. Field is vice-president, and Mr. Lowber secretary. In all the operations of the company, thus far, the various negotiations, the plan of the work, the oversight of its execution, and the correspondence with the officers and others, mainly devolved upon Mr. Cyrus W. Field.

The greatest and most difficult part of the original design still remained to be executed, and that was the submarine cable from Newfoundland to Ireland. The distance was one thousand nine hundred and fifty statute miles; the sea was stormy and uncertain; no submarine line of more than three

hundred miles had then been attempted. In anticipation of the task now to be undertaken, Mr. Field, on his first visit to England, in 1854, had invited manufacturers to furnish him with specimens of cable which they would recommend, and estimates of its cost, and he had entered into correspondence with various persons on the subject. In 1856 he procured an order from our Government, under which Lieutenant Berryman made soundings of the Atlantic between Newfoundland and Ireland. Lieutenant Berryman sailed on that service on the 18th of July, and the next day Mr. Field sailed for England, having received the formal authority of the company to make arrangements in England for the submarine line, either by a subscription to this company or by organizing a new company as auxiliary or associated with this. In England he had invited the coöperation of Mr. Brett, a gentleman of great experience, who in 1851 formed a company which had laid the first submarine cable from England to France. He afterward brought in Mr. Edward O. W. Whitehouse, electrician, and Mr. Charles T. Bright, engineer-both gentlemen of high scientific attainments. These four gentlemen, on the 29th of September, 1856, entered into a formal agreement to use their exertions for the formation of a new company, to be called the Atlantic Telegraph Company, the object of which should be "to continue the existing line of the New York, Newfoundland and London Telegraph Company to Ireland, by making, or causing to be made, a submarine telegraph cable for the Atlantic." This done, Mr. Field issued, on the 1st of November, 1856, a circular, signed by him as Vice-President of the New York, Newfoundland and London Telegraph Company, from which I can not forbear making the following ex

tracts:

"In April, 1854, a company was incorporated by act of the Colonial Legislature of Newfoundland for the purpose of establishing a line of telegraphic communication between America and Europe. That government evinced the warmest interest in the undertaking, and, in order to mark substantially their sense of its importance and their desire to give to it all the aid and encouragement in their power, they conferred upon it, in addition to important privileges of grants of land and subsidy, the sole and exclusive right of landing a telegraphic line on the shores within their jurisdiction, comprising, in addition to those of Newfoundland, the whole

Atlantic coast of Labrador, from the entrance of Hudson Strait to the Straits of Belle Isle.

"This act of the Colonial Legislature was subsequently ratified and confirmed by her Majesty's government at home. The company also obtained, in May, 1854, an exclusive charter from the government of Prince Edward Island, and afterward from the State of Maine, and a charter for telegraphic operations in Canada.

"The exclusive rights absolutely necessary for the encouragement of an undertaking of this nature having thus been secured along the only seaboard eligible for the western terminus of an European and American cable, the company in the first instance commenced operations by proceeding to connect St. John's, Newfoundland, with the widely ramified telegraph system of the British North American provinces and the United States.

"This has been recently completed by the submersion of two cables in connection with their land lines-one, eighty-five miles in length, under the waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, from Cape Ray Cove, Newfoundland, to Ashpee Bay, Cape Breton; the other, of thirteen miles, across the Straits of Northumberland, connecting Prince Edward Island with New Brunswick. Electric communication is thus established direct from Newfoundland to all the British American colonies and the United States. On the Irish side lines of telegraph have been for some time in operation throughout the country, and are connected with England and the Continent by submarine cables. The only remaining link in this electric chain required to connect the two hemispheres by telegraph is the Atlantic cable. The New York, Newfoundland and London Telegraph Company, being desirous that this great undertaking should be established on a broad and national basis, uniting the interests of the telegraph world on both sides of the Atlantic, have entered into alliance with persons of importance and influence in the telegraphic affairs of Great Britain; and, in order at the same time to obtain the fullest possible information before entering upon the crowning effort of their labors, they have endeavored to concentrate upon the various departments of the undertaking the energies of men of the highest acknowledged standing in their profession, and of others eminently fitted for the work, who were known to have devoted much time and attention to the subject."

After detailing the results of the investigations, the circular proceeded:

"All the points having a direct practical bearing on any part of the undertaking have thus been subjected to a close and rigid scrutiny, the result of this examination proving to be in every respect of the most favorable character. It remained only that those possessing the required power should take the initiative. The New York, Newfoundland and London Telegraph Company, possessing, in virtue of their charter, all the