CYRUS FIELD CARRIES ON gl 
of the difficult complications of the war, it would be best to 
defer cable-laying for the time. 
While in London, Field acquainted himself with the latest 
developments in submarine telegraphy. The British firm of 
Glass, Elliott & Company, which had made half the first cable, 
had recently laid successfully for the French Government a 
cable in the Mediterranean between France and Algeria. 
This was in water over two miles deep. The same firm had 
also laid a still longer Mediterranean cable between the island 
of Malta and the city of Alexandria in Egypt. This latter 
cable was nearly as long as the one between Ireland and New- 
foundland, being over fifteen hundred miles in length. Still 
another successful cable was soon to be under way—the first 
cable to India, laid in sections along the Persian Gulf by Sir 
Charles Bright, former engineer of the Atlantic Telegraph 
Company. These successes helped to offset in the public mind 
the failures of the Newfoundland and the Red Sea lines. 
Before leaving London, Field asked the firm of Glass, El- 
liott & Company to compute their terms for undertaking the 
laying of a cable from Ireland to Newfoundland. After sever- 
al months of calculation, they wrote to him stating their es- 
timates and their confidence in its success. Meanwhile, Field 
had been trying to raise funds in America for a new attempt. 
He visited Boston, Providence, Albany, Buffalo, and Phila- 
delphia, besides canvassing commercial organizations in New 
York. Small contributions rewarded his earnest exhortations, 
but the general attitude was to listen with interest and en- 
courage him verbally, but not to buy any stock. The cable 
scheme was considered a sort of South Sea Bubble! The au- 
dience were impressed by Field’s glowing arguments and 
agreed that in theory it was a wonderful idea, but they were 
hard-headed Americans not inclined to risk hard-earned 
dollars. 
At various times in his career, Field was accused by “pa- 
