630 



HISTORY OF THE SEA. 



" Wednesday, April 30th. — Five A. m., weather thick and 

 f°ggy • Glorious sight when the fog broke : a steamer close to 

 us. She sees us and bears down on us. We are saved, thank 

 God ! We are safe on board the Tigress, of St. John's, Captain 

 Bartlett. He says the other steamer could not have seen us, as 

 the captain is noted for his humanity. The Tigress musters 

 120 men, the kindest and most obliging I have ever met. 

 Picked up in latitude 52° 35' N." 



This providential escape completed a voyage made upon 

 floating ice of about two thousand miles, occupying one hundred 

 and ninety-five days. This rescue completed the history of the 

 Polaris, the only person lost being Hall, who had originated the 

 whole expedition. 



In the summer of 1857, an attempt to unite the two hemi- 

 spheres by means of a submerged electric cable was made under 

 the auspices of the New York, Newfoundland, and London Tele- 

 graph Company, assisted by vessels furnished by the Govern- 

 ments of Great Britain and the United States. Of this under- 

 taking — unsuccessful as it was, and fresh as it is in the minds of 

 all — our account will properly be brief. The idea was first con- 

 ceived in the year 1853, in America, and was earnestly pursued 

 in defiance of all obstacles, — Cyrus H. Field, Esq., Vice-President 

 of the Company, being one of its most zealous and indefatigable 

 champions. Surveys and deep-sea explorations, made by Cap- 

 tain Berryman, U.S.N., in the Dolphin and Arctic, in 1853 and 

 1856, resulted in the discovery of a submarine ledge or prairie, 

 at a depth varying from two to two and a half miles, extending 

 from Cape Race, in Newfoundland, to Cape Clear, in Ireland. 

 This tract received the name of the Telegraphic Plateau. 

 Lieutenant Maury, of the National Observatory, inferred, from 

 observations made in the Atlantic during a long series of years, 

 that both sea and air would be in the most favorable condition 

 for laying the wire between the 20th of July and the 10th of 

 August, The telegraphic fleet consisted of the U.S. steam- 



