There are precipices
of sheer descent down which the cable now hangs. The Azores and Bermudas
are peaks of ocean mountains. The warm river known as the Gulf Stream,
coming northward meets the ice-bergs and melts them, and deposits the
shells, rocks and sand they carry on this plain. When it was discovered
the difficulty in the way of an Atlantic cable seemed no longer to
exist, and those who had been anxious to engage in the enterprise began
to bestir themselves.
Of these the most active was the American, Cyrus W. Field. He began life
as a clerk in New York City. When thirty-five years old he became
engaged in the building of a land line of telegraph across Newfoundland,
the purpose of which was to transmit news brought by a fast line of
steamers intended to be established, and the idea is said to have
occurred to him of making a line not only so far, but across the sea. In
November, 1856, he had succeeded in forming a company, and the entire
capital, amounting to 350,000 pounds, was subscribed. The governments of
England and the United States promised a subsidy to the stockholders.
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