History of the Atlantic telegraph : to the return of the expedition of 1865 / by Henry M. Field.
- Henry Martyn Field
- Date:
- 1866
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: History of the Atlantic telegraph : to the return of the expedition of 1865 / by Henry M. Field. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.
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![The agreement with the Electric Telegraph Com- ,pany, and the formal surrender of its charter, were signed on the tenth of March, [1854,] and on tbe four- teenth we left New-York, accompanied by Mr. Gris- borne. The next morning we took the steamer at Boston for Halifax, and thence, on the night of the eighteenth, departed in the little steamer Merlin for St. John's, Newfoundland. Three more disagreeable days, voyagers scarcely ever passed, than we spent in that smallest of steamers. It seemed as if all the storms of winter had been reserved for tbe first month of spring. A frost-bound coast, an icy sea, rain, hail, snow and tempest, were the greetings of the telegraph adventurers in their first movement towards Europe. In the darkest night, through which no man could see the ship's length, with snow filling the air and flying into the eyes of the sailors, with ice in the water, and a heavy sea rolling and moaning about us, the captain felt his way around Cape Eace with bis lead, as the blind man feels his way with his staff, but as confi- dently and as safely as if the sky had been clear and the sea calm ; and the light of morning dawned upon deck and mast and spar, coated with glittering ice, but floating securely between the mountains which form the gates of the harbor of St. John's. In that busy and hospitable town, the first person to whom we were introduced was Mr. Edward M. Archibald, then Attor-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21025010_0049.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
