14 A SAGA OF THE SEAS 
ing an industrial asset, although many poorly-constructed 
ones blew up or racked themselves to pieces. A novel means 
of transit by “‘rail-roads” with rather feeble locomotives was 
being demonstrated by ingenious inventors, and bold proph- 
ets were predicting the eventual supremacy of rails over 
the established canals. 
Many minor inventions and conveniences were coming in 
to make life less arduous and toilsome. Even so small an ad- 
vance as the invention of matches was significant of the trend 
to a more urbane civilization. The industrial revolution in 
the United States was under way. The typical American 
predilection for action, exploitation, and progress was dem- 
onstrating itself. 
Cyrus Field’s career began in the Jacksonian prosperity of 
the 1830's. During his active life, he saw the panic of 1837, 
the coming of Darwinism, the Civil War, and the panic of 
1873; the nation changed from agricultural to industrial. 
When he died in 1892, the “frontier” era of American history 
was over, and a more advanced order of society was in prepa- 
ration. Roughly speaking, his span of life corresponds to the 
Victorian era of England. In fact, Queen Victoria was born 
in the same year as Field but survived him by nine years. He 
died in the same year as Tennyson. When he was born, the- 
ology and politics absorbed men’s attention; when he died, 
economics and industry were paramount interests. Men 
themselves had changed, as well as the nation’s development. 
The New York to which the Field boys came to seek their 
fortunes was an irregular cluster of old-fashioned houses on 
the lower tip of Manhattan island. Business life centered 
around the docks, where sailing ships discharged their exotic 
cargoes. Dirt roads were still common although paved streets 
with horse-cars were coming in. The rich men of the time 
lived in tree-shaded dwellings around Wall street and the 
Bowery. Many had summer homes up in Greenwich Village. 
Columbia College was in the present financial section; the 
