134 A SAGA OF THE SEAS 
thousand pounds capital was raised in a fortnight, despite a 
financial depression in England. The American firm of J. S. 
Morgan & Company aided the effort. In Field’s old age, a 
younger Morgan was to prove a good friend. 
It was now March 1, and in the four spring months, sixteen 
hundred miles of cable had to be made, to add to the eleven 
hundred miles remaining from the year before. About two 
thousand miles would be required for the new cable, and sev- 
en hundred for completing the cable of 1865 if it could be 
grappled for successfully. With improved equipment and 
better skill in laying, there would be less slack and waste than 
in the early attempts. The first cable of all, in 1857, had 
been twenty-five hundred miles long when manufactured; 
the early cable-laying had been done on rather a zigzag 
course because of lack of skill in such difficult work. 
The new cable was similar to the one of the year before, 
except that the steel wires for sheathing were galvanized, to 
protect against corrosion. ‘This dispensed with some of the 
sticky preservative and added to the lightness and strength. 
The shore-end section in Irish waters was made, this time, 
in three weights: the first eight miles out from the coast was 
especially heavy; then came eight miles of moderately heavy; 
and finally fourteen miles of ordinary heavy. Altogether, this 
totaled thirty miles of heavy section before the main cable was 
spliced on. At the Newfoundland end, where there was less 
shipping, only five miles of heavy shore cable was considered 
necessary. 
In accordance with the recommendations of the engineer- 
ing advisers of the year before, a seventy-horsepower steam- 
engine was added to the machinery, in order to pick up and 
draw in cable. For grappling the old cable, a twenty-mile 
length of wire rope was ordered; each of the forty-nine wires 
of this rope was separately encased in manila hemp. Special 
grapnels for dragging the ocean bottom were added; these 
were essentially hooks with double heads. 
