The Story of the Atlantic Telegraph. Field Henry Martyn

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СКАЧАТЬ the early part of May, the two gentlemen who had remained behind in Newfoundland rejoined their associates in New York, and there the charter was formally accepted and the Company organized. As all the associates had not arrived till Saturday evening, the 6th of May, and as one of them was to leave town on Monday morning, it was agreed that they should meet for organization at six o'clock of that day. At that hour they came to the house of Mr. Field's brother Dudley, and as the first rays of the morning sun streamed into the windows, the formal organization took place. The charter was accepted, the stock subscribed, and the officers chosen. Mr. Cooper, Mr. Taylor, Mr. Field, Mr. Roberts, and Mr. White were the first directors. Mr. Cooper was chosen President, Mr. White, Vice-President, and Mr. Taylor, Treasurer.

      This is a short story, and soon told. It seemed a light affair, for half a dozen men to meet in the early morning and toss off such a business before breakfast. But what a work was that to which they thus put their hands! A capital of a million and a half of dollars was subscribed in those few minutes, and a company put in operation that was to carry a line of telegraph to St. John's, more than a thousand miles from New York, and then to span the wild sea. Well was it that they who undertook the work did not then fully realize its magnitude, or they would have shrunk from the attempt. Well was it for them that the veil was not lifted, which shut from their eyes the long delay, the immense toil, and the heavy burdens of many wearisome years. Such a prospect might have chilled the most sanguine spirit. But a kind Providence gives men strength for their day, imposes burdens as they are able to bear them, and thus leads them on to greater achievements than they knew.

      CHAPTER IV.

      CROSSING NEWFOUNDLAND

      There is nothing in the world easier than to build a line of railroad, or of telegraph, on paper. You have only to take the map, and mark the points to be connected, and then with a single sweep of the pencil to draw the line along which the iron track is to run. In this airy flight of the imagination, distances are nothing. A thousand leagues vanish at a stroke. All obstacles disappear. The valleys are exalted, and the hills are made low, soaring arches span the mountain streams, and the chasms are leaped in safety by the fire-drawn cars.

      Very different is it to construct a line of railroad or of telegraph in reality; to come with an army of laborers, with axes on their shoulders to cut down the forests, and with spades in their hands to cast up the highway. Then poetry sinks to prose, and instead of flying over the space on wings, one must traverse it on foot, slowly and with painful steps. Nature asserts her power; and, as if resentful of the disdain with which man in his pride affected to leap over her, she piles up new barriers in his way. The mountains with their rugged sides cannot be moved out of their place, the rocks must be cleft in twain, to open a passage for the conqueror, before he can begin his triumphal march. The woods thicken into an impassable jungle; and the morass sinks deeper, threatening to swallow up the horse and his rider; until the rash projector is startled at his own audacity. Then it becomes a contest of forces between man and nature, in which, if he would be victorious, he must fight his way. The barriers of nature cannot be lightly pushed aside, but must yield at last only to time and toil, and "man's unconquerable will."

      Seldom have all these obstacles been combined in a more formidable manner to obstruct any public work, than against the attempt to build a telegraph line across the island of Newfoundland. The distance, by the route to be traversed, was over four hundred miles, and the country was a wilderness, an utter desolation. Yet through such a country, over mountain and moor, through tangled brake and rocky gorge, over rivers and through morasses, they were to build a road – not merely a line of telegraph stuck on poles, but "a good and traversable bridle-road, eight feet wide, with bridges of the same width," from end to end of the island.

      But nothing daunted, the new Company undertook the great work with spirit and resolution. Gisborne had made a beginning, and got some thirty or forty miles out of St. John's. This was the easiest part of the whole route, being in the most inhabited region of the island. But here he broke down, just where it was necessary to leave civilization behind, and to plunge into the wilderness.

      Intending to resume the work on a much larger scale, Mr. White, the Vice-President, was sent down to St. John's to be the General Agent of the Company; while Mr. Matthew D. Field, as a practical engineer, was to have charge of the construction of the line. The latter soon organized a force of six hundred men, which he pushed forward in detachments to the scene of operations.

      And now began to appear still more the difficulties of the way. To provide subsistence for man and beast, it was necessary to keep near the coast, for all supplies had to be sent round by sea. Yet in following the coast line, they had to wind around bays, or to climb over headlands. If they struck into the interior, they had to cut their way through the dense and tangled wood. There was not a path to guide them, not even an Indian trail. When lost in the forest, they had to follow the compass, as much as the mariner at sea.

      To keep such a force in the field, that, like an army, produced nothing, but consumed fearfully, required constant attention to the commissary department. The little steamer Victoria, which belonged to the Company, was kept plying along the coast, carrying barrels of pork and potatoes, kegs of powder, pickaxes and spades and shovels, and all the implements of labor. These were taken up to the heads of the bays, and thence carried, chiefly on men's backs, over the hills to the line of the road.

      In many respects, it had the features of a military expedition. It moved forward in a great camp. The men were sheltered in tents, when sheltered at all, or in small huts which they built along the road. But more often they slept on the ground. It was a wild and picturesque sight to come upon their camp in the woods, to see their fires blazing at night while hundreds of stalwart sleepers lay stretched on the ground. Sometimes, when encamped on the hills, they could be seen afar off at sea. It made a pretty picture then. But the hardy pioneers thought little of the figure they were making, when they were exposed to the fury of the elements. Often the rain fell in torrents, and the men, crouching under their slight shelter, listened sadly to the sighing of the wind among the trees, answered by the desolate moaning of the sea.

      Yet in spite of all obstacles, the work went on. All through the long days of summer, and through the months of autumn, every cove and creek along that southern coast heard the plashing of their oars, and the steady stroke of their axes resounded through the forest.

      But as the season advanced, all these difficulties increased. For nearly half the year, the island is buried in snow. Blinding drifts sweep over the moors, and choke up the paths of the forest. How at such times the expedition lay floundering in the woods, still struggling to force its way onward; what hardships and sufferings the men endured – all this is a chapter in the History of the Telegraph which has not been written, and which can never be fully told. The

      Gentlemen of England,

      Who dwell at home at ease,

      and who are justly proud of the extent of their dominions, and the life and power which pervade the whole, may here find another example of the way in which great works are borne forward in distant parts of their empire.

      But to carry out such an enterprise, requires head-work as well as hand-work. Engineering in the field must be supported by financiering at home. It was here the former enterprise broke down, and now it needed constant watching to keep the wheels in steady motion. The directors in New York found the demand increasing day by day. The minds which had grasped the large design must now descend to an infinity of detail. They had to keep an army of men at work, at a point a thousand miles away, far beyond their immediate oversight. Drafts for money came thick and fast. To provide for all these required constant attention. How faithfully they gave to this enterprise, not only their money, but their time and thought, few will know; but those who have seen can testify. In the autumn of that year, 1854, the writer removed to the city of New York, and was almost daily at the house of Mr. Field. Yet for months it was hardly possible to go there of an evening without finding the library СКАЧАТЬ