Introduction: There is nothing in the cable histories about Horatio Hubbell of Philadelphia, save for the occasional mention of a plan to connect Newfoundland and Ireland with a cable suspended from floating buoys.

Hubbell, born in 1799, lived in Pennsylvania for most of his life, and died in 1875. See below for Hubbell’s obituary, which gives a brief description of his polymath career.

Reproduced here is a copy of Hubbell’s original 1849 Memorial to Congress proposing the buoyed cable. Particularly interesting are the later notes added by Hubbell himself to the Memorial, which give further insight into his struggle (and eventual failure) to get recognition of what he believed should be his place in history as the originator of the Atlantic Cable.

In the text below, this serif font indicates quotes from historical material.

THE following memorial was presented to the Senate of the United States by the Vice President, the Hon. GEORGE M. DALLAS, at the Session of 1849, (XXXth Congress,) and to the House of Representatives by the Hon. JOSEPH R. INGERSOLL. In the Senate it was referred to the Committee on Commerce. [See Senate Journal for the second session of the Thirtieth Congress— page 157—Monday, January 29, 1849.]

To the Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, in Congress assembled --

The memorial of Horatio Hubbell and John Henry Sherburne, of Philadelphia, and State of Pennsylvania respectfully sets forth :-

That they are desirous of establishing a Telegraphic communication between this Continent and Europe. Believing this to be feasible, from many substantial reasons, they ask your honorable bodies to appropriate means by which this great project may he successfully carried through. Your memorialists proceed to say, that from many observations that have been. made, there is incontestable evidence of the existence of a sub-marine table land, extending from the Banks of Newfoundland across the Atlantic Ocean to the mouth of the British channel. This is proved by the altered color of the sea water, which has a different appearance in unfathomable places from what it has in shallow spots. This, combined with the volcanic construction of Iceland and the Azores and the situation of that portion of the ocean that lies between both these volcanic groups, has led to the conclusion that there has been a lifting up of the bottom of the sea, through the agency of a Plutonic power, and that the bottom thus elevated appears to be cut through in many places by deep water channels. The appearance of Medusae, Polypi, and other marine creatures seen upon the edge of the discolored water strengthens this opinion.

Your memorialists propose that these suggestions should be further investigated, and for this purpose that they be furnished with a vessel, by a resolution of your honorable bodies, in order to make the necessary surveys and soundings. They also ask, if such shall be found to exist across the Atlantic Ocean : that they be furnished by the United States government with the necessary buoys, and the chains and anchors, in order to station the said buoys at the necessary distances across the ocean, to establish a line of communication. The distance from Cape Race, in Newfoundland, to the headlands of Dingle Bay, in Ireland, being about 1900 statute miles, it would take only three hundred and eighty buoys to have a buoy anchored every five miles the whole distance ; while it is probable that a buoy at every ten miles distance would be sufficient-in which case one hundred and ninety buoys would be enough. To these buoys a telegraphic wire would be attached, and sunk at such distances under water as would protect it from all molestation. In the intervals between the buoys, the wire, if necessary, would be supported by cork floats attached to it.

Your memorialists think it unnecessary to enter into further details at the present time to show, for instance, what precautions would be adopted to prevent chafing of the wires against the anchoring chains; or the means of diminishing the size of the buoy by sustaining their anchoring chains by lesser buoys or floats throughout the whole length of the chains, &c. The chief object of your memorialists at present being to direct the attention of Congress to this important object—as your memorialists are of opinion that, though no soundings can be found, as indicated above, buoys may be anchored by means of buckets, properly constructed, let down to a sufficient depth, so as to be clear of all currents moving on the upper surface, and supporting a column of water, while they rested on the water, so as to counterbalance the drifting movement of the buoys.

And this experiment, they pray may be fully tested; which, should it not succeed, contrary to the firm persuasion of your memorialists, will yet serve to elucidate many important phenomena. Your memorialists will advert to the fact that the British Government are now about adopting the bold project of carrying the telegraphic wire across the British Channel, and it remains for our Government, by their promptness and energy, not to allow themselves to be anticipated in the glorious enterprise of extending a telegraphic communication across the ocean itself.

All of which is respectfully submitted by your Memorialists,

Map of Telegraph Plateau from Physical Geography of the Sea,
1869 edition showing cables

Dear Sir,

Your favor of the 3rd inst is just received, and finds me much engaged with various demands on my time, so that I can scarcely find a moment to reply, yet I cannot let your communication pass without a few remarks. -

I have now for the first time read and with much interest your memorial to Congress in 1849. You will not feel offended if I give you facts, (so long as they are facts,) though they may be fatal to your honest supposition that “whatever has been done towards an Ocean Telegraph has only been a following up of your ideas,” or that you can claim priority in the suggestion of a Telegraph across the Atlantic.

You will believe from the position which I hold in relation to the Telegraph that it was quite natural that the extension of my System throughout the world should occupy my thoughts with some degree of intensity, from its inception, and that in view of this anticipated worldwide extension, the connection of Europe and America was at least a possible if not probable subject of thought and speculation with me. Now this, Sir, is a subject which occupied my mind at least as early as the year 1842, as printed documents before Congress elucidate. At that period there were certain problems bearing on such a project necessary to be solved before an Ocean Telegraph could assume anything like a practicable shape. Like the project of aerial navigation, as it now exists, it rested on a brilliant but impracticable, or rather unsolved conception, and ingenious minds like your own might well entertain the thought and devise ingenious modes of solving it, yet without demonstrating the means of a successful solution.

A claim for the original barren thought, however brilliant, is comparatively of little account in the eyes of the world. It is he who first combines facts, plans and means to carry out a brilliant thought to a successful result who in the judgment of the world is most likely to receive the greatest credit, while, nevertheless an impartial posterity will award to each one whose mind has been employed in elaborating any part of a useful project, his just share of honor in bringing it to a result. Whatever may be said and proved adverse to your claim of priority, your memorial of 1849 must be noted by the historian of the Telegraph as worthy of honorable mention in history.

The difficulties at that early date (1842,) which were in the way of realizing such a project, were,
First; Can Electricity, by means of a single electromotor, be propelled to a distance so great as the width of the Ocean?

This was a problem which my experiments of 1842, 1843, were intended to solve, and which was so far satisfactorily solved to my own mind, as to lead me to declare the law of propulsion, or rather the law of battery construction, in my Report of the Results of those experiments to the Secretary of the Treasury, in a letter which will be found on the files of the Department dated New York, August 10th, 1843. In this letter I say “The practical inference from this law is, that a telegraphic communication on my plan, may with certainty be established across the Atlantic! Startling as this may now seem, the time will come when this project will be realized.”

You will perceive that there is here “a point of time earlier than yours” by five years, and as “high and solemn a record” of the project of a Telegraphic communication across the Atlantic in the Archives of the Treasury Department, as if recorded in the Archives of the Senate, and it bears on its face the evidence that my mind was as that time engaged in elaborating on this project. But the difficulty I had overcome and thus announced to the Government was not the only one in the way for
Second; What is the character of the bed of the Ocean? This bed had not then been sounded, and, therefore, its character, whether suitable or not, from its depth, its regular or irregular bottom, its freedom or not from currents, or other disturbing agents, for the reception of a proper conductor, was not known.

This important part of the problem I conceive to have been solved by Lieutenant Maury and Lieut. Berryman, so far as it is solved.

Third: Can a cable conductor of such a length be paid out to such a depth as is required?
This is resolved only by conjecture, and the experience of comparatively very short distances in successful submarine crossings of rivers and wide channels. The first attempt of this kind for telegraphic purposes was made, so far as I believe, by me across the East River, between Castle Garden and Governor’s Island in the autumn of 1842. Long subsequent to this submarine experiment, English companies have laid the conductor beneath the Irish and the English channels. I have no doubt of the same success in crossing the Ocean.

Fourth; Is it possible to interest Government, or companies to aid in such an enterprise?
You have tried the Government for your plan, and the effort is unattended with success, on the plea that “the world was not yet prepared for the project.” No action has been had, and it has laid dormant for five years. Means, however, are as essential to the project before it can be made of practical value, as all other parts of it. A company formed originally for a more limited purpose, has been persuaded favorably to entertain the project of an Oceanic Telegraph first suggested by me, and a sub oceanic conductor proposed by me. This design is formally embraced in the Charter of the land Telegraph from St. John’s Newfoundland to New York.

In regard to your proposal to be a Director in this Company, your request arises doubtless from a misconception of its nature. While it would truly give me pleasure to see you in that position, it does not rest with me to appoint the Officers. The Gentlemen who procured the Charter from the Government of Newfoundland, for this Company, are men of great Capital, who have been at great trouble & expense in procuring their present Charter. They have invested in the enterprise a large Capital; they invited me to join them, and to invest a large sum, which has constituted me a joint owner with them, and no others can now be admitted but by unanimous consent of the present Stockholders. Should you wish to become interested by investing your proportion of capital in the company, I will cheerfully give you my vote as Stockholder, but as you will perceive I cannot control the vote, and it must remain with the other gentlemen to decide even if you can be admitted as a Stock holder, and then a majority of the Stockholders must decide who shall be of their Board of Directors.

I have no time to speak of the merits of your plan proposed in your Memorial. I think however, that any plan of buoys for anchoring the conductor cable, is liable to several obvious objections. The buoys being on the surface of the Sea, must be exposed to all the disturbing and disastrous agencies of Storms, currents, Ice, and Malevolence from which a submarine cable once laid upon “Maury’s Telegraph plateau” would be free.

Dr Sir

It has not been for want of material, but for want of leisure that I did not immediately answer your letter of the 12th inst. So far from being offended at your facts I am only astonished that you did not when in the possession of such facts candidly admit at once that you are not the original projector of a Transatlantic Telegraph—for your fatal facts are most certainly fatal to any such pretension upon your part. To come immediately to the point—the words of your letter to some late Secretary of the Treasury Aug. 10/43 are as given by yourself as follows: “The practical inference from this law is, that a telegraphic communication on my plan, may with certainty be established across the Atlantic! Startling as this may now seem, the time will come when this project will be realized.”

Now I submit to any impartial man whether there is any thing more than a mere conjecture in this letter and whether it amounts to anything more that what is hazarded every day relative to Baloons to wit: that we shall one day be able to navigate the air with them—when someone (it is always understood) shall discover the means to guide and propel them. I will even put it to yourself —whether you had when you wrote that letter any definite idea how it was to be done and whether you were not waiting for further Revelations.

To construe an instrument correctly we take into consideration all parts together. So here you say your difficulty was whether “Electricity could be propelled by means of single Electrometer to a distance so great as the width of the Ocean.” You became so satisfied of that that you wrote the above letter. Taken in connection with this does your letter show any thing more—than not how it could go across the ocean—but that it might be propelled that distance—and even through water. Provided any mode could be devised to carry and sustain your voice through & over an ocean but how that was to be effected your letter don’t say. And I ask you whether you had even dreamt of it. We might conjecture that in free space it would go to the moon, but the exact difficulty here is, that which you were in, when you wrote that letter, you did not know how to do it! If you did, you did not promulgate it, nor even say you knew the mode but kept it within yourself. That you had no plan is further evident from the fact that your letter lay dormant in the said Secretary’s office nearly eleven years and no one has heard of any plan of yours until within the last year, five years after my whole plan as detailed in my memorial had been published to the world through the Journals of Congress. More particularly that of the Senate. You are pleased to call the Department of the Secretary of the Treasury as high & solemn a place of Record as that of the Senate. Most certainly you have the privilege of playing upon my expressions if that suits your fancy—but you shall have a most anomalous idea of a Record or a place of Record, if you seriously insist upon this argument. The Journal of the Senate especially, when printed and published forming part of the immutable archives of the Republic— it is rather a more important document than any loose papers drawn from the Pidgeon holes of a Secretary’s office—seen by no eye but his or his clerk—which finds no insertion in his annual Report or in the accompanying documents. That you wrote such a letter exactly as you have stated I am bound from courtesy to admit and believe—but that has nothing to do with the general argument I am now making, to wit: that in public offices, where we have had examples of papers being put on file and taken off & others substituted or at least where such can be done sometimes with impunity such Records are not quite so solemn certain and authentic as you could have us suppose. But further did any one but you and the said Secretary know anything of your Letter according to your own showing and let me ask do you call this private communication from one individual to another, for it amounts only to that, such an announcement of a fact as will entitle you to call yourself the original promulgator of a discovery. You might as well insist upon the private confidential conversation of two persons whispering a secret, whose object is not promulgation but concealment. It is true you had nothing to announce more than a belief upon your part of how far & through what your wire would carry—But where was your specification? In the absence of which we are obliged to recur to a general construction of your Letter as we have before observed, by which it appears you had the conviction that the fluid would traverse a wire through the water & width of the ocean—provided always that means would be found to carry the wire through in the first place. To compare you with a great name—you were in the situation of Archimedes—you could lift this world, if you could only find the point d’applie for your lever. Your great discovery therefore was a fruitless one until the preliminary was adjusted. It is with reluctance that I speak of my own doings in this matter—they are fully before the public & that public will finally judge between us; whatever I had to announce was not done by a private letter but by a public memorial, addressed to the assembled Representatives of this great nation, thereby publishing it to the world & announcing the project openly, directly & explicitly—not leaving it to future contingencies or conjectures but demonstrating in express terms the way & mode in which it would be effected. I did not grope my way, Sir, by experiments, of which I mean no contempt, but reached my conclusions by the certainty of reasoning.

The human mind when it rises to general views—does not follow, but leads empirical experience. As Sir David Brewster has well remarked the world would have been far enough behind hand had it followed only the snail like progress of mere induction. La Place did not require to see the Satellites of Jupiter revolving at right angles to each other, he predicted it, and observation afterwards confirmed it. Newton did not require to see the diamond analysed to affirm there was something combustible in it—he inferred it & the Florentines confirmed it by experiments. Le Venier did not require to be shown the new Planet—he predicted it & observation confirmed it. I am not so idle as to compare any thing that you or I could do to these illustrious men, but I cite them to prove the truth of the assertion that the mind when it rises to the general leads instead of following experience. To apply it to the case in hand—I did not wait for your experiments to know that the Galvanic fluid could be passed across the ocean & through its floods—I inferred it with certainty—you say you have confirmed it. Secondly—some five years more or less before Berryman or Maury made their soundings—my memorial affirmed the existence of soundings between Newfoundland and Ireland and a plateau was shown to exist by the distinct assertion that there had been an upheaving of the bottom of the ocean by volcanic action and other indicia pointed out to show that soundings existed—and the experiment has confirmed the prediction. And yet you undertake to say with such evidence staring you in the face that you are the originator of a plan to carry the Telegraph across the ocean—the very basis of the proceeding as your letter admits as that upon which all your hopes rested having been pointed out by my memorial & about which your conjecturing letter written to a Secretary has not a single conjecture.

Thirdly— again look at my memorial and you will find—Five years before your doubts were satisfied as you say in your recent letter to me my memorial asserted that there were no currents at a certain depth of the ocean & for that very reason buckets might be anchored immoveably for the purpose of holding my buoys and all this I inferred from the hydrostatic pressure towards the centre of the Earth as certainly as if my eyes had seen it —and it was pointed out as one of the great means by which the Transit of the Telegraph could be effected—all of which experiment has been verified and yet you undertake to say that to you belongs the glory of devising the Ocean Telegraph.

No Sir you have signally failed to make out your case, and you will find it difficult indeed to make the public believe that my ideas have not been followed to the Letter. Let your own language silence your pretensions on the subject forever. In your recent letter your expressions are as follows: “It is he who first combines facts, plans and means to carry out a brilliant thought to a successful result who in the judgment of the world is most likely to receive the greatest credit.” Compare your letter & my memorial and let the world then decide whether it was not my memorial that first combined the facts,—formed the plans & indicated the means by which this mighty project could be executed.

You charge me with having failed in getting the patronage of the Government in this matter. Let me ask whether you have been more successful. If you have I congratulate you. But I never had much expectation of obtaining the patronage of a Government so slow in the appreciation of science as our own.

In conclusion let me say that as you do not think my plan of buoys is practicable, I return the compliment by telling you that your plan first suggested by a man in Trenton 2 or 3 years ago is impracticable for those mathematical reasons that you might or might not understand, but which cannot be inserted in a letter of this kind. And this too notwithstanding the assistance you hope to receive from “Maury’s Plateau” named so I presume from the same reason, that America was named after Vespucci, though Columbus discovered it. As to the reasons you assign in your letter to show the impracticability of my plan—if you will read my memorial again, you will find that I reserve the further details of my plan to myself, & therefore I would suggest that when they are more fully communicated, you will be in a better position to play the critic.

I cannot conclude* this letter without returning you my thanks for your friendly offer as to the directorship. I am not particularly ambitious for the situation and if its acquisition is attended with so many difficulties—I could altogether decline it.

I am Sir with Respect,
Yr obdt svt
Hor. Hubbell

*A claim for the original barren thought however brilliant is comparatively of little account in the eyes of the world.

Sir

Your communication of the 29th of June is this day received. I have examined with care my reply to your first letter to discover in it anything by which I could have given occasion to so discourteous and acrimonious a rejoinder. As I was conscious, while writing my reply to yours, of only the most respectful and kindly feeling, I am wholly at a loss to account for the tone and temper which you have manifested in addressing me, in a correspondence of your own seeking, and while I was honestly endeavoring to give you facts in answer to queries of your own proposing. Since the facts I gave you remain unchanged by anything you have said, I see no necessity for continuing the correspondence, which in view of your letter, unexplained, could not be continued on my part but at the sacrifice of my own selfrespect.

Mr. S.F.B Morse

Sir,

I have only to say in reply to your note of the 22nd that any man who has no other answer to an argument than the contents of that note would deserve my pity. You have not merited my contempt.

. . . by which I was for the first time made awa . . .
in the Union of the 30th of January ???. I have a great kindness for the memory of Col. Sherburne a gentleman with whom I have spent many agreeable hours. The origin of the Trans-Atlantic Telegraph cannot be mentioned without associating his name with it. It is there as indelible as my own. I shall always feel grateful to him for having most readily joined me in that application—as he shared the reproach—he will share the honor if there is any to be attached to it. And if our rights could be secured by Patent his heirs & representatives would have equal rights with . . .

. . . & if necessary will make the requisite affidavits to establish its correctness. I make this statement because in the article alluded to you have ?? the extremely harsh term of “arrogate” as though it was my purpose to suppress Col. Sherburne’s name in this mater. On the contrary as I have before stated his name must always be mentioned the ?? with mine. Col. Sherburne never to my knowledge held himself out as the author of the project but in as much as he is one of the two memorialists—he it entitled to the credit ?? . . .

Dear Sir:

Since writing the article on the first page of last Friday’s [30 Jan 1857] “Union” I have observed in the Balt. Sun that you did connect my late father-in-law, Col Sherburne’s name, with your Memorial presented by Mr. Brodhead, though all our local papers report the contrary. If by co-operation with you I can address our mutual interest I shall be happy to do so.

Yours very respectfully

To the Editors of the Union:

GENTLEMEN: A letter from General Hubbell, in answer to my communication of in your paper of the 30th ultimo, requests me to drop you a line to prevent a misconception regarding his petition mentioned therein. It appears that he did embrace the name of Colonel John H. Sherburne, as his coadjutor in the initiatory plan of the trans-Atlantic telegraph plan, presented to Congress in 1849, although that fact does not appear in the reports of our local press. Writing of my deceased father-in-law, he says: “When your claims will rest on the rights of Colonel Sherburne as indisputably one of the original memorialists.” By your permission I make the correction, with great pleasure, and sincerely hope that General Hubbell will realize his just expectations, and will not find, with others, that republics are still ungrateful.

Thankful for the valuable space allowed me, I am your obliged servant, S.F. GLENN

Feb 9, 1857.

Dear Sir:

You will perceive by the “Union” of this date that I have made the amendte by inserting an explanatory note, as desired by your favor of the 7th inst.

I did not, however, intend in my communication of the 30th ult. in that paper, to animadvert upon your course in relation to Col. Sherburne, so much as upon those my extracts replied to; who are all now here and urging their merits before Congress. Justice to the dead seemed to require it at my hands; and couched as your memorial thro Mr. Brodhead was, in the first person singular, (or so exclusively reported) I could not but think that his part was “interred with his bones”. I am glad to learn from your letter the contrary, and hope the matter will prove eventually profitable.

With great respect, yours,

Dear Sir

Your courteous favor of the 11th inst is at hand three days since—when a gentleman falls into an error he has no hesitation in correcting it.

Previous to receiving your letter I had procured from two gentlemen who were acquainted with the whole matter from its origin the enclosed affidavits detailing the history of the Trans Atlantic Telegraph Project from its inception to the time of its promulgation. One of these gentlemen Mr. Somers was acquainted with Col. Sherburne before I was.

Since therefore we have corrected the first misapprehensions I propose to publish these affidavits with this simple heading—“In order to prevent any future misapprehension on the subject of the Trans Atlantic Telegraph, we publish the history of its origin as contained in the following affidavits” or should it be more agreeable to you we can publish in the following form, to wit.

A Card. After due investigation it is agreed between the undersigned on the subject of the Trans Atlantic Telegraph—that the original conception of that project belongs to Mr. Hubbell and that he & Col. Sherburne were the original Memorialists—which fact has always been recognized.

Something of this kind must be done sooner or later and may as well be done now while the thing is rife as it is necessary to anticipate the proceedings of those who are fully awake now about this matter.

A company I understand has been formed in London in opposition to the Newfoundland Co. to bring the Telegraph directly from England to the States. The former are going to adopt undoubtedly the ?? underscored in the printed Memorial here with sent. Now to checkmate this operation I propose entering a caveat to be followed when necessary by a patent. In order to enter a caveat the person applying must be able to state that he is the real Inventor and to obtain the Patent the applicant must swear to it. Now whoever can do this—you cannot nor could Col. Sherburne if he were alive—because it emanated from me. Your good sense will therefore at once suggest to you the necessity of setting as soon as possible our relative positions.

The recognition of the joint memorialism gives you in my opinion an equitable interest in any patent that may be taken out in this matter, but whether it does or not you shall have your equal share in any patent I may obtain for any thing suggested in the joint Memorial of Hubbell and Sherburne.

If you approve of the Card copy it out as above—sign it and send it on to me & I will sign it also & forward to the Union.

Dear Sir:

I am in the receipt of yours of the 15th, and regret that it is out of my power to comply with your request respecting the letter of Prof. Morse.

That there is such a letter I do not doubt, as I saw extracts from it in Harper’s Weekly, about a month ago. I think it would be best to refer thereto, and address the Department officially.

A communication was published several (about three or four) months ago in the “National Intelligencer” from a wealthy gentleman here of the name of Lindsay, wherein he states that a relative of his, Lord Lindsay of Scotland, had imagined and promulgated the ideal of a transatlantic Telegraph as far back as the year 1840.

In haste,

Gen Horatio Hubbell
Phila.

Origin of the Atlantic Telegraph

The Hamilton (C.W.) Times contains a long article headed “The Originator of the Atlantic Telegraph an Englishman,” in which it gives a detailed account of the efforts of a young Englishman named F.H. Gisborne, toward bringing the subject of a transatlantic telegraph before the capitalists of Canada and Nova Scotia, and claims that the grand conception of the work now happily completed originated with Mr. G. in 1850 or ’51. We beg leave to inform our Canadian neighbor that we have a prior claim to originality in this matter, on behalf of our own countrymen, of at least two years anterior date, and that the distinguished honor of originating and printing out the feasibility of the great enterprise for whose completion the world is now ringing with praise, belongs exclusively to Col. Horatio Hubbell, a distinguished member of the Philadelphia bar, who projected and originated the grand idea as early as 1848, and to his associate, J. H. Sherburne, who had the moral courage to join Gen. Hubbell in signing his memorial to Congress, detailing the plan, and asking governmental assistance in carrying it out.

This memorial is the origin of the Atlantic telegraph, and was presented to the Senate of the United States by the Vice President, Hon. C.M. Dallas, and to the House of Representatives by Hon. J.R. Ingersoll, on the 29th of January, 1849. When first published it was treated as a chimera of the wildest kind, and the memorialists, if not mad, as nearly so as possible. When presented in the Senate by Vice President Dallas, the greater part of that body were for throwing it under the table; but one Senator (says Mr. Dallas in a note to Gen. Hubbell, dated March 18, 1854), Jefferson Davis, moved that it be referred to the Committee on Commerce, remarking that “the world was not yet prepared for the project, but might be soon.” This memorial is recorded on the Senate journal of the day it was presented, and will speak for itself. The idea of establishing a transatlantic telegraph with Gen. Hubbell was not a vague and impulsive one, but was the result of long and patient study, investigation and inquiry of an original and practical mind, which, while it thoroughly comprehended the gigantic character of the undertaking, was yet alive to, and singularly suggestive of the obstacles to be encountered, and the means of overcoming them. In the memorial, the existence of the plateau or table land between Newfoundland and Ireland is first announced to the world as the course where the telegraphic communication would be established between the Old and the New continents. The words of the memorial are explicit on this point, as will be seen by the following extract from it:-

“Your memorialists proceed to say, that from many observations that have been made, there is incontestible evidence of the existence of a submarine table land, extending from the Banks of Newfoundland across the Atlantic Ocean to the mouth of the British Channel. This is proved by the altered color of the sea water, which has a different appearance in unfathomable places from what it has in shallow spots. This, combined with the volcanic construction of Iceland and the Azores, and the situation of that portion of the ocean that lies between both these volcanic groups, has led to the conclusion that there has been lifting up of the bottom of the sea, through the agency of a Plutonic power, and that the bottom thus elevated appears to be cut through in many places by deep water channels. The appearance of medusae, polypi, and other marine creatures seen upon the edge of the discolored water strengthens this opinion.”

They then proceed to ask that they be furnished with a vessel, in order to make the necessary surveys and soundings, and it was, no doubt, in accordance with this suggestion that Lieut. Berryman was dispatched, and did make his soundings over this part of the ocean in 1853. Lieut. Maury did not make a personal survey himself, but made a report upon the soundings of Lieut. Berryman, under date of 22d of February, 1854-five years after the Hubbell and Sherburne memorial had been presented to Congress and promulgated to the world.

From the foregoing indisputed documentary evidence now on file at Washington, it is plain that the scheme for a transatlantic telegraph had its origin in America, and that the mode, means, and location to carry the telegraph wire or cable across the Atlantic ocean were originated by Gen. Hubbell; that to him and to his deceased associate Mr. Sherburne, who signed the memorial, is due the exclusive honor of first pointing out the existence of the plateau or table land between Newfoundland and Ireland, in connection with the telegraph cable now successfully laid upon it; and finally that these gentlemen were the first to publish and promulgate the feasibility of such an enterprise, and thus enlist in its behalf the attention, capital and skill of the individuals and governments, through whose agency the inceptive idea of the great mind in which it originated has been successfully carried out in accordance with the original suggestions contained in the Hubbell and Sherburne memorial.

Origin of the Atlantic Telegraph

We have received from Professor Jackman, of the Norwich University of Vermont, a copy of the Vermont Chronicle, containing a communication of his, originally published in the Vermont Mercury, in August 1846, in which a Transatlantic Telegraph between England and America is recommended. The plan, as detailed in this communication, although more definite than others claimed to have been suggested anterior to this date, is yet impracticable in character, and does not in any manner take from Gen. Hubbell the credit of first pointing out the existence of the plateau or table land between Newfoundland and Ireland, in connection with the cable now laid upon it, and in fact suggesting the only mode, means and location, as we asserted, of carrying the cable across the Atlantic Ocean. Before penning our article, we were aware of the fact that many persons had made statements on this subject as early as 1843, but as they were of an indefinite character, and simply conveyed a belief that a telegraph would in time unite the shores of Europe and America, we did not think it worth while to mention their authors, any more than we would if aerial navigation were consummated, mention the name of the thousand and one persons who are daily making predictions of its ultimate success.

The plan of Professor Jackman, was in substance to cover the wires with india rubber and encase them in lead tubes, as had been previously done across the East River, and pay them out from two vessels starting from a suitable point mid-ocean between Liverpool and Boston. The only practical, and original feature about this plan is, that of commencing to pay out the cable at a point mid-ocean between the places where the termini were to be landed. For this Professor Jackman is deserving all due praise, as we think that this system of laying a long submarine cable is preferable to the one adopted by the Atlantic Cable Superintendents, upon their first unsuccessful trial in 1857. Our theory however is, that without covering the wire with gutta percha as suggested by Mr. W. Reynolds, of this city, and laying it on the plateau or table land as originally pointed out by Gen. Hubbell, of Philadelphia, a transatlantic telegraph cable could never have been successfully laid and insulated, and made to answer the purpose of its design.

Research Material Needed

The Atlantic Cable website is non-commercial, and its mission is to make available on line as much information as possible.

You can help - if you have cable material, old or new, please contact me. Cable samples, instruments, documents, brochures, souvenir books, photographs, family stories, all are valuable to researchers and historians.

If you have any cable-related items that you could photograph, copy, scan, loan, or sell, please email me: [email protected]

—Bill Burns, publisher and webmaster: Atlantic-Cable.com