Origin and Progress of Ocean Telegraphy

Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879, by Various, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Origin and Progress of Ocean Telegraphy.

Origin and Progress of Ocean Telegraphy.

At the celebration in this city of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the formation of the company for laying the first Atlantic cable, Monday, March 10, the projector of the enterprise, Mr. Cyrus W. Field, spoke as follows:

Neighbors and Friends: Twenty-five years ago this evening, in this house, in this room, and on this table, and at this very hour, was signed the agreement to form the New York, Newfoundland and London Telegraph Company—the first company ever formed to lay an ocean cable. It was signed by five persons, four of whom—Peter Cooper, Moses Taylor, Marshall O. Roberts, and myself—are here to-night. The fifth, Mr. Chandler White, died two years after, and his place was taken by Mr. Wilson G. Hunt, who is also present. Of my associates, it is to be said to their honor—as might have been expected from men of their high position and character—that they stood by the undertaking manfully for twelve long years, through discouragements such as nobody knows but themselves. Those who applaud our success know little through what struggles it was obtained. One disappointment followed another, till "hope deferred made the heart sick." We had little help from outside, for few had any faith in our enterprise. But not a man deserted the ship: all stood by it to the end. My brother Dudley is also here, who, as the counsel of the company, was present at the signing of the agreement, and went with Mr. White and myself the week after to Newfoundland, to obtain the charter, and was our legal adviser through those anxious and troubled years, when success seemed very doubtful. At St. John's the first man to give us a hearty welcome, and who aided us in obtaining our charter, was Mr. Edward M. Archibald, then Prime Minister of Newfoundland, and now for more than twenty years the honored representative of Her Majesty's Government at this port, who is also here to-night. It is a matter for grateful acknowledgment that we were spared to see accomplished the work that we began; and that we meet now, at the end of a quarter of a century, to look with wonder at what has been wrought since in other parts of the world.

Our little company came into existence only a few weeks before the Western Union Telegraph Company, which is entitled to share in our congratulations, and has kindly brought a connecting wire into this room, by which we can this evening communicate with every town and village from the Atlantic to the Pacific; and by our sea cables, with Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, the West Indies, and South America. While our small circle has been broken by death but once, very different has it been with the Atlantic Telegraph Company, which was formed in London in 1856, to extend our line across the ocean. At its beginning there were eighteen English and twelve American directors, thirty in all, of whom twenty-nine have either died or retired from the board. I alone still remain one of the directors.

Many of the great men of science on both sides of the Atlantic, who inspired us by their knowledge and their enthusiasm, have passed away. We have lost Bache, whose Coast Survey mapped out the whole line of the American shores; and Maury, who first taught us to find a path through the depths of the seas; and Berryman, who sounded across the Atlantic; and Morse; and last, but not least, Henry. Across the water we miss some who did as much as any men in their generation to make the name of England great—Faraday and Wheatstone, Stephenson and Brunel—all of whom gave us freely of their invaluable counsel, refusing all compensation, because of the interest which they felt in the solution of a great problem of science and engineering skill. It is a proud satisfaction to remember that while the two Governments aided us so generously with their ships, making surveys of the ocean, and even carrying our cables in the first expeditions, such men as these gave their support to an enterprise which was to unite the two countries, and in the end to bring the whole world together.

Others there are, among the living and the dead, to whom we are under great obligations. But I cannot repeat the long roll of illustrious names. Yet I must pay a passing tribute to one who was my friend, as he was the steadfast friend of my country—Richard Cobden. He was one of the first to look forward with the eye of faith to what has since come to pass. As long ago as 1851 he had a sort of prophet's dream that the ocean might yet be crossed, and advised Prince Albert to devote the profits of the great London Exhibition of that year to an attempt thus to unite England with America. He did not live to see his dream fulfilled.

But though men die, their works, their discoveries, and their inventions live. From that small beginning under this roof, arose an art till then scarcely known, that of telegraphing through the depths of the sea. Twenty-five years ago there was not an ocean cable in the world. A few short lines had been laid across the channel from England to the Continent, but all were in shallow water. Even science hardly dared to conceive of the possibility of sending human intelligence through the abysses of the ocean. But when we struck out to cross the Atlantic, we had to lay a cable over 2,000 miles long, in water over 2 miles deep. That great success gave an immense impulse to submarine telegraphy then in its infancy, but which has since grown till it has stretched out its fingers tipped with fire into all the waters of the globe. "Its lines have gone into all the earth, and its words to the ends of the world." To-day there are over 70,000 miles of cable, crossing the seas and the oceans. And, as if it were not enough to have messages sent with the speed of lightning, they must be sent in opposite directions at the same moment. I have just received a telegram from Valentia, Ireland, which reads, "This anniversary witnesses duplex working across the Atlantic as an accomplished fact"—by which the capacity of all our ocean cables is doubled.

Who can measure the effect of this swift intelligence passing to and fro? Already it regulates the markets of the world. But better still is the new relation into which it brings the different kindreds of mankind. Nations are made enemies by their ignorance of each other. A better acquaintance leads to a better understanding; the sense of nearness, the relation of neighborhood, awakens the feeling of brotherhood. Is it not a sign that a better age is coming, when along the ocean beds strewn with the wrecks of war, now glide the messages of peace?

One thing only remains which I still hope to be spared to see, and in which to take a part, the laying of a cable from San Francisco to the Sandwich Islands—for which I have received this very day a concession from King Kalakaua, by his Minister, who is here to night—and from thence to Japan, by which the island groups of the Pacific may be brought into communication with the continents on either side—Asia and America—thus completing the circuit of the globe.

But life is passing, and perhaps that is to be left to other hands. Many of our old companions have fallen, and we must soon give place to our successors. But though we shall pass away, it is a satisfaction to have been able to do something that shall remain when we are gone. If in what I have done to advance this enterprise, I have done something for the honor of my country and the good of the world, I am devoutly grateful to my Creator. This has been the great ambition of my life, and is the chief inheritance which I leave to my children.

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