Page:Heroes of the telegraph (IA cu31924031222494).djvu/89

 United States brig Dolphin, the bottom between Ireland and Newfoundland was a plateau covered with microscopic shells at a depth not over 2000 fathoms, and seemed to have been made for the very purpose of receiving the cable. He left the question of finding a time calm enough, the sea smooth enough, a wire long enough, and a ship big enough,' to lay a line some sixteen hundred miles in length to other minds. As to the line itself, Mr. Field consulted Professor Morse, who assured him that it was quite possible to make and lay a cable of that length. He at once adopted the scheme of Gisborne as a preliminary step to the vaster undertaking, and promoted the New York, Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company, to establish a line of telegraph between America and Europe. Professor Morse was appointed electrician to the company.

The first thing to be done was to finish the line between St. John's and Nova Scotia, and in 1855 an attempt was made to lay a cable across the Gulf of the St. Lawrence, It was payed out from a barque in tow of a steamer; but when half was laid a gale rose, and to keep the barque from sinking the line was cut away. Next summer a steamboat was fitted out for the purpose, and the cable was submerged. St. John's was now connected with New York by a thousand miles of land and submarine telegraph.

Mr. Field then directed his efforts to the completion of the trans-oceanic section. He induced the American Government to despatch Lieutenant Berryman, in the Arctic, and the British Admiralty to send Lieutenant: Dayman, in the Cyclops, to make a special survey along the proposed route of the cable. These soundings revealed the existence of a submarine hill dividing the 'telegraph plateau' from the shoal water on the coast of Ireland, but its slope was gradual and easy.