14 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERT. 



the ocean. It was easy to draw a line from one point to the 

 other — making no account of the forests and mountains and 

 swamps and rivers and gulfs, that Liy in our way. Not one; of 

 us liad ever seen the country, or liad any idea of the obstacles 

 to be overcome. "We thought we could build the line in a few 

 months. It took two years and a half. The arduous and costly 

 work was accomplished. A road was cut through 400 miles of 

 wilderness, and after two attempts in 1865 and 18.')0, a cable, pro- 

 cured in England, was laid across the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 

 Yet we never asked for help outside our own little circle. In- 

 deed, I fear we should not have got it if we had — for few had 

 any faith in our scheme. Every dollar came out of our own 

 pockets. Yet I am proud to say no man drew back. No man 

 proved a deserter ; those who came first into the work have stood 

 by it to the end. Of those six men, four are here to-night — Mr. 

 Peter Cooi^er, Closes Taylor, Marshall O. Roberts, and myself. 

 My brother Dudley is in Europe, and Mr. Chandler White died 

 in 18JG, and his place was supplied by Mr. Wilson G. Hunt, who 

 is also here. Mr. Robert W. Lowber was our Secretary. To 

 these gentlemen, as my first associates, it is but just that I should 

 pay my first acknowledgments. 



"From this statement you perceive that in the beginning this 

 was wh(jlly an American enterprise. It was begun, and f(n' two 

 years and a half was carried t)n, solely by American capital. Our 

 brethren across the sea did not even know what we were doin^ 

 away in the forests of Newfoundland. Our little company raised 

 and exi)ended over a million and a quarter of dollars befoi'e an 

 Englishman paid a single pound sterling. Our only support out- 

 side was in the liberal character and steady friendship of the Gov- 

 ernment of Newfoundland, for which we were greatly indebted 

 to ^Ir. E. ^I. Archibald, then Attorney-General of that colony, 

 and now British Consul in New York. And in preparing for an 

 ocean cable, the first soundings across the Atlantic were made by 

 American oflieers in American ships. Our scientific men had 

 taken great interest in the subject. The U. S. ship ' Dol])hin,' dis- 

 covered the telegrajjhic plateau as early as 1853 ; and the U. S. 

 ship 'Arctic ' sounded across from Newfoundland to Ireland in 1856, 

 a year before H. M.'s ship ' Cyclops,' under command of Captain 

 Da3-man, went over the same course. This I state, not to take 

 aught from the just praise of England, but simply to vindicate the 

 truth of history. 



" It was not till 185G — ten years ago — that the enterpi-ise had 

 any existence in England. In that summer I went to London, 

 and there, with Mr. John W. Brett, Mr. Charles Bright, and Dr. 

 Whitehouse, organized the Atlantic Telegraph Company. Sci- 

 ence had begun to contemi^late the necessity of such an enter- 

 prise ; and the great Faraday cheered us with his loft}'^ enthu- 

 siasm. Then for the fii'st time was enlisted the support of English 

 capitalists ; and then the British Government began that generous 

 course which it has continued ever since — ofi'ering us ships to 

 complete soundings across the Atlantic, and to assist in laying the 

 cable, and an annual subsidy for the transmission of messages. 



