GRAPPLING FOR THE SEA-SERPENT 155 
creased to about two million dollars when the Company be- 
gan operations and cablegrams became popular. At the com- 
pletion of the two cables, Field was forty-seven years old and 
had a wife, four daughters and two sons. Besides his family, 
he was always generous to other relatives and friends, so that 
he had plenty of use for his income. 
Field’s strength and weakness lay in his liberality and op- 
timism. He persuaded men to follow his plans by his frank- 
ness and open-hearted fairness. There is no doubt that he 
took enormous chances in risking his family’s nest-egg in an 
adventure on the high seas—a closely-fought contest with the 
forces of nature. He had no assurance that a cable really 
could be laid; or that, once laid, it could be operated profit- 
ably. Neither his upbringing as a minister’s son in an in- 
land village nor his training as a merchant had prepared him 
for a career as international promoter of a great maritime 
speculation. His knowledge of engineering and electricity was 
slight, yet time and again he supplied just the factors needed 
to bring the difficult project to success. 
When the two cables had been successfully laid and their 
operation was begun, care was taken not to ruin them by too 
high a charge of electricity, as had been the case in 1858. The 
copper wires in the core were nearly three times as large as 
those of 1858. Nevertheless, in the opening messages a speed 
of only eight words a minute was attempted. As the operators 
became more experienced, this rate was increased to fifteen or 
more words a minute. The self-induction of electricity in a 
long cable tends to slow down the transmission of messages; 
this was a serious problem at first. 
Despite all the care expended, both of these cables broke 
down a few months later, but they were revived successfully. 
One was out of order again in the following year. The engi- 
neering firm of Bright & Clark advised about these troubles. 
Neither cable lasted many years in operation, but by the time 
they gave out, others had been laid and still greater progress 
