Work was at once begun on the section between New York and St. John’s.  There was no road across the island of Newfoundland, and the Company had not only to build their telegraph line, but to construct a road by the side of it through an almost unbroken wilderness.  It was a work which required the highest executive ability, and the services of an army of men.  The distance across the island was four hundred miles, and there were numerous rocky gorges, morasses, and rivers in the way.  The country was a desolation, and it was found that supplies would have to be transported from St. John’s.  The execution of the work was committed to Mr. White, the Vice-President, who went to St. John’s to act as the general agent of the Company, and to Mr. Matthew D. Field, who was appointed constructing engineer.  These gentlemen displayed such skill and energy in their respective positions that in two years the Company had not only built a telegraph line and a road of four hundred miles across the island, but had constructed another line of one hundred and forty miles in the island of Cape Breton, and had stretched a submarine cable across the Gulf of St. Lawrence.[A] The line was now in working order from New York to St. John’s, Newfoundland, a distance of one thousand miles, and it had required about a million of dollars for its construction.  It now remained to complete the great work by laying the cable between Newfoundland and Ireland.

[Footnote A:  The first effort to lay a cable in the Gulf of St. Lawrence was made by this Company, in August, 1855.  It was a failure, and the cable was lost.  The second attempt was made in the summer of 1856, and was entirely successful.]

It being desirable to examine still further the bed of the ocean over which the cable was to be laid, Mr. Field requested the Government of the United States to send out an expedition over the route for the purpose of taking deep sea soundings.  His request was promptly granted, and an expedition under Lieut.  Berryman was dispatched, which proceeded to examine the ocean bed, with the most satisfactory results.  This was accomplished in the summer of 1856, and the next year the same route was surveyed by Commander Daymon, with the British war steamer Cyclops—­this survey being ordered by the Lords of the Admiralty, at Mr. Field’s request.  These surveys made it plain beyond question that a cable could lie safely on the bed of the sea, at a depth sufficient to protect it from vessels’ anchors, from icebergs, and from submarine currents, and that it would receive sufficient support from that bed to free it from all undue tension.  There was no doubt of the ultimate success of the enterprise in the minds of the directors, but it was necessary to convince the public in both Europe and America that it was not an impossibility, and also to enlist the sympathies of the Governments of Great Britain and the United States, and secure their assistance.