Words Under Water : 315 



present at this famous dinner party testified on Morse's behalf and 

 described the occurrences of the voyage. 



Even after the land telegraph began its rapid growth, the subma- 

 rine telegraph still required time for development. Morse in America 

 and Wheatstone in England projected a submarine telegraph system 

 but arrived at no practical results. 



Apparently one of the first of all attempts to lay a practical under- 

 water cable took place in New York Harbor as early as 1843 under 

 the direction of Samuel Colt. A cable was laid from the Battery to 

 Governors Island. The service was inaugurated and messages were 

 sent for a period of about twenty-four hours. Then a ship anchored 

 in the wrong place and dragged up 200 feet of the cable. Thus, at the 

 very beginning of cable service, the first failure was due to a classic 

 type of accident that was to make such grief for the cable companies 

 in the future. Colt only attempted to lay a cable in the shallow water 

 of the harbor. Naturally, the proposal to lay an ocean cable was a 

 much more daring project. 



Then there were countless difficulties to be overcome: the develop- 

 ment of a metal wire or a combination of wires capable of conveying 

 an electrical current over long distances without too much loss of 

 strength along the way; the development of a wire system that 

 would take a certain amount of strain without breaking; insulation 

 of the cable; protection of the cable and its insulation from the de- 

 structive action of salt water and also from destruction by the ship 

 worm {teredo navalis) and other marine creatures. These were only 

 a few of the major difficulties. 



Apart from the matter of the cable there were the great questions 

 of where it was to be laid and how it was to be laid. A hundred years 

 ago very few soundings had been taken in the open ocean that suc- 

 ceeded in reaching the bottom and very little was known about 

 depth, shape or composition of the floor of the ocean. Sailing vessels 

 were interested in soundings along the shore somewhere within the 

 loo-fathom curve. Beyond this depth soundings had little practical 

 value for naval and merchant vessels. Only the scientists saw any 

 value in deep-water soundings and so the methods employed re- 

 mained primitive and the number of soundings taken remained small. 



It was natural that Cyrus Field, as soon as he began to think seri- 

 ously of the promotion of a submarine telegraph, should turn to Mat- 

 thew Fontaine Maury for advice. Maury was already the director of 

 most of the scientific work carried out by the navy both in practical 

 astronomy and in the study of the sea. The resources for study that 



