38 A SAGA OF THE SEAS 
up, and the cable had to be cut after forty miles had been paid 
out. The formerly gay party returned to New York amid 
pessimism and gloom. 
Undaunted, Cyrus Field sailed again for England to order 
a new cable. His sanguine nature quickly conquered fits of 
depression. Next summer, having learned not to use a sailing 
vessel in the work and to avoid social displays, the Company 
succeeded in laying an eighty-five-mile cable between New- 
foundland and the mainland. A land extension of a hundred 
forty miles was built across Cape Breton to connect the cable 
with Nova Scotia’s telegraph system. Expensive problems 
were still being encountered in building the four-hundred- 
mile line across Newfoundland, as roads and settlements had 
to be made in the wilderness. Matthew Field organized a 
force of six hundred men there amid difficulties of the most 
discouraging kind. Over a million dollars was spent on these 
American extensions, of which Field contributed over two 
hundred thousand. It was now advisable to enlist British 
cooperation, both in finance and technique. Field particu- 
larly wished to talk with John W. Brett, the father of sub- 
marine telegraphy in England, who had laid the first cable 
across the English channel. 
In the summer of 1856, Field, with his family, was in Eng- 
land conferring with such technical advisers as Brett, Michael 
Faraday, Charles T. Bright, and Dr. Edward O. W. White- 
house. Before leaving the United States, he had persuaded 
the Washington Government to take more soundings between 
Newfoundland and Ireland, similar to those of which Maury 
had written him two years before. Later Field persuaded 
the British Admiralty to take additional soundings along the 
same route. He wished to get as much information as science 
could give him. Up to this time the Bretts and the Brights 
were the leading authorities on submarine telegraphs and 
had laid lines off the British coast. They helped Field but 
considered themselves the pioneers. 
