PERSEVERANCE, PERSEVERANCE 119 
knew very little about electricity. When he offered his serv- 
ices to Field, he was in his sixties. After a long period of pri- 
vation and ridicule, he was beginning to let his head become 
a little turned by the applause and honors which the final 
success of his recording telegraph was bringing him. Field 
was America’s best contribution to the Atlantic cable. 
As indicative of the active British interest in technique, 
the special committee appointed by their Government in 
1859 thoroughly reviewed the subject of making, laying, and 
operating submarine cables. This committee, under the 
chairmanship of Captain Douglas Galton of the Royal Engi- 
neers, enlisted the efforts and knowledge of Sir Charles Wheat- 
stone and William Fairbairn, celebrated scientists, and George 
P. Bidder, Cromwell F. Varley, Latimer Clark, and Edwin 
Clark, notable engineers, with the helpful cooperation of 
George Saward, secretary of the Atlantic ‘Telegraph Company 
and close friend of Field. 
Some of the aspects of the problems investigated by the 
committee in its nearly two years of deliberations were: the 
electrical and mechanical properties of copper wire, both 
pure and alloyed; the properties of gutta percha and other 
insulating substances; the chemical changes in all these ma- 
terials when submerged in salt water; the effects of high pres- 
sure and low temperature on these substances; the tensile 
strength and breaking strain of copper wires, and of iron, 
steel, and tarred hemp separately and combined; the electrical 
charging and discharging of conductors; and the methods of 
testing conductors and locating faults. 
This elaborate inquiry was followed by an interesting paper 
before the British Association for the Advancement of Science 
(of which one of the committee members, William Fair- 
bairn was president) by Sir Charles Bright and Latimer Clark 
(also of the committee). This paper systematized the methods 
of electrical testing and greatly clarified the subject. Later 
Bright and Clark devised a preservative mixture for prevent- 
