PREFACE 
THE NortH ATLANTIC, with its fogs and icebergs, put up a 
stormy resistance when the first telegraph cable was laid along 
its slimy bed. This difficult feat was accomplished by a New 
York merchant who stuck at the disheartening job through 
years of failures. The long fight to stretch a copper wire from 
Ireland to Newfoundland has become one of the sagas of the 
high seas. The final success of the cable-laying revolutionized 
foreign-news service, which had required several weeks to 
send word of the starting of wars, the death of a great man, or 
the price of wheat. Such delays are hard to conceive today 
when transmission of news around the world is almost in- 
stantaneous. 
The New York merchant who enlisted British engineers and 
ships for the unique work was Cyrus Field, son of a New Eng- 
land clergymen. He became one of America’s favorite heroes, 
although he suffered much ridicule at first. For many years 
his whiskered face was well known on Fifth Avenue and on 
ocean steamers. He was also noted as the promoter of New 
York’s elevated railways and in later life was pointed out as a 
man who lost his large fortune in one calamitous day in Wall 
Street. Always picturesque, he had many ups and downs. 
Courageous and generous, he is interesting as a personality 
aside from his achievement in linking the continents with an 
ocean cable. There are many analogies in his life and times to 
conditions of today. 
Four years after his death in 1892, his daughter, Isabella 
Field Judson, edited and published his letters and autobio- 
graphical notes. ‘This book is the best source of original docu- 
ments. The writings of his enterprising brother, the Rever- 
end Henry Martyn Field, about the cable-laying are somewhat 
wordy but vividly human and contain many first-hand impres- 
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