34 A SAGA OF THE SEAS 
the debts of Gisborne’s company (nearly fifty thousand dol- 
lars), and arranged for large land grants and other help from 
the Newfoundland Government. Fifty square miles of land 
was given to the Company, with a promise of as much more 
upon the successful laying of the cable. Despite the New- 
foundland Government’s limited income, it even voted a 
small amount for the telegraph financing. The legal and 
financial arrangements, supervised by David Dudley Field, 
gave the Company an intrenched position for the starting 
of this momentous enterprise. 
As Henry Field pointed out in his Story of the Atlantic 
Telegraph, “There is nothing in the world easier than to 
build a line of railroad, or of telegraph, on paper.” One has 
only to take the map and sweep his pencil along the line to 
be run. ‘“‘A thousand leagues vanish at a stroke. All obstacles 
disappear.” ‘The Company’s practical difficulties now began 
to arise, and Cyrus Field’s luck turned bad again. 
Field’s entire career was a succession of ups and downs. 
Just after the Company was organized, his business partner 
and brother-in-law, Joseph F. Stone, died, so that Field was 
obliged to resume his old place at the head of the firm. A 
few weeks later his little son died. With a heavy heart he con- 
tinued his double work. Early in 1855 he sailed for England 
to order the cable for connecting Newfoundland with Nova 
Scotia. In England he met the veteran telegraph promoter 
John W. Brett, who encouraged him while others smiled in- 
credulously. 
At that time the British were the leaders in cable work. 
Morse had laid a small copper wire in New York harbor in 
1842, but the results were not encouraging, although his idea 
of insulating with hemp soaked in tar and pitch and sur- 
rounded by a layer of rubber was suggestive. In 1845, Ezra 
Cornell, for whom Cornell University was afterward named, 
laid a cable under the Hudson River between Fort Lee, New 
Jersey, and New York. This consisted of two cotton-covered 
