676 
Correspondence. 
(Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
*-      Sept.,  1918. 
Four  attempts  had  been  made  to  connect  the  two  continents,  but 
on  each  occasion  the  cable  parted. 
It  was  the  high  courage  of  Cyrus  W.  Field,  Peter  Cooper,  David 
Dudley  Field  and  others  that  carried  the  project  through.  Even 
then  the  full  measure  of  discouragement  had  not  been  reached,  for 
after  six  weeks  of  experimenting,  in  which  the  line  was  never  opened 
to  the  public,  it  broke  down. 
At  the  end  of  two  months  the  operators  were  dismissed  and 
telegraphic  communication  between  the  United  States  and  England 
was  pronounced  dead. 
The  problems  to  be  solved  wrere  numerous,  but  chief  among  them 
was  the  necessity  of  constructing  a  cable  that  would  be  strong 
enough  to  resist  the  strain  placed  upon  it  and  at  the  same  time  be 
flexible  and  slender  enough  to  be  carried  on  a  ship.  Then  an  ap- 
paratus had  to  be  devised  to  pay  out  the  cable. 
On  the  fourth  trial  the  Niagara,  the  largest  ship  in  the  United 
States  Navy,  and  the  Agamemnon,  an  English  warship  which  had 
been  active  in  the  Crimean  War,  met  in  the  middle  of  the  ocean, 
July  29,  spliced  their  sections  of  the  cable,  and  started  for  home. 
The  Niagara  arrived  at  Trinity  Bay,  August  4,  and  the  Agamemnon 
reached  Valentia  the  next  day.  By  August  16  the  line  was  in  work- 
ing order. 
The  cable  was  made  up.  of  seven  copper  wires  encased  in  gutta 
percha,  then  wrapped  in  wax  hemp,  and  this  covered  by  an  outer 
sheath  of  126  braided  wires.  It  was  2,500  miles  long,  weighed  a 
ton  to  the  mile,  and  cost  $1,256,250.  The  total  cost  of  the  project 
was  $1,834,500. 
To  the  Editor  of  American  Journal  of  Pharmacy: 
The  above  clipping  from  the  Evening  Bulletin,  August  16,  brings 
to  mind  the  article  by  Professor  Kraemer  in  June  number  of  The 
American  Journal  of  Pharmacy,  "  On  Medicinal  Plants,  Present 
and  Future  Supplies,"  in  which  he  alludes  to  "  the  story  of  Marshall 
Field  and  the  cable  as  known  to  every  school  boy,"  as  an  instance  of 
nerve  to  carry  to  completion  something  almost  superhuman  to  the 
public  mind. 
In  this  case  the  school  boy  puts  one  over  on  the  schoolteacher,  if 
the  professor  refers  to  the  humorous  version  of  that  event  in  rhyme 
by  John  G.  Saxe  as  I  presume  he  does,  as  it  was  such  a  familiar  one 
