ay, 1854, the Company was formally organized at the residence of Mr.
David Dudley Field. Messrs. Cooper, Taylor, Field, Roberts, and White
were the first directors. Mr. Cooper, was made President of the
Company, Mr. White, Vice-President, and Mr. Taylor Secretary. A capital
of one million and a half of dollars was subscribed on the spot, Mr.
Field contributing about two hundred thousand dollars in cash.

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