down upon it, dragging the bottom of the ocean as we went. At first it was a little bit awkward to fish in such deep water, but our men got used to it, and soon could cast a grapnel almost as straight as an old whaler throws a harpoon.

Our fishing line was of formidable size. It was made of rope twisted with wires of steel, so as to bear a strain of thirty tons. It took about two hours for the grapnel to reach bottom, but we could tell when it struck. I often went to the bow and sat on the rope, and could feel by the quiver that the grapnel was dragging on the bottom, two miles under us. But it was a very slow business. We had storms and calms, and fogs and squalls. Still we worked on day after day. Once, on the 17th of August, we got the cable up, and had it in full sight for five minutes—a long slimy monster, fresh from the ooze of the ocean's bed - but our men began to cheer so wildly that it seemed to be frightened, and suddenly broke away and went down into the sea.

This accident kept us at work two weeks longer; but finally on the last night of August we caught it. We had cast the grapnel thirty times. It was a little before midnight on Friday night that we hooked the cable, and it was a little after midnight Sunday morning that we got it on board. What was the anxiety of those twenty-six hours! The strain on every man's life was like the strain on the cable itself. When finally it appeared it was midnight; the lights of the ship and in the boats around our bows, as they flashed in the faces of the men, showed them eagerly watching for the cable to appear on the water.

At length it was brought to the surface. All who were allowed to approach crowded forward to see it; yet not a word was spoken; only the voices of the officers in command were heard giving orders. All felt as if life and death hung on the issue. Only when the cable was brought over the bow and on to the deck did the men dare to breathe. Even then they hardly believed their eyes. Some crept toward it to feel of it to be sure it was there. Then we carried it

along to the electrician's room to see if our long-sought treasure was alive or dead. A few minutes of suspense and a flash told of the lightning current again set free. Then did the feeling, long pent up, burst forth. Some turned away their heads and wept. Others broke into cheers, and the cry ran from man to man and was heard down in the engine room, deck below deck, and from the boats on the water and the other ships, while rockets lighted up the darkness of the sea. Then with thankful hearts we turned our faces again to the west. But soon the wind arose, and for thirty-six hours we were exposed to all the dangers of a storm on the Atlantic. Yet in the very height and fury of the gale, as I sat in the electrician's room, a flash of light came up from the deep which, having crossed to Ireland, came back to me in midocean telling me that those so dear to me were well.

In looking back over these eventful years, I wonder how we had the courage to carry it through in the face of so many defeats and of almost universal unbelief. A hundred times I reproached myself for persisting in what seemed beyond the power of man. And again there came a feeling, that, having begun, I could not turn back; at any cost I must see it through.

At last God gave us the victory. And now, as we see its results, all who had a part in it must feel rewarded for their labors and their sacrifices.

That iron chain at the bottom of the sea is a link to bind nations together. The magnetic currents that pass and repass are but the symbols and the instruments of the invisible yet mighty currents of human affection that, as they pass to and fro, touch a thousand chords of love and sympathy, and thus bring into nearer, closer, and sweeter relations the separated members of the one great family of mankind.

CLASS ACTIVITIES

1. Give an explanation for including this narrative in "Crossing Great Waters."

2. Which of the diagrams (pp. 16, 69, and 266) best represents the plan

of this selection? If there is difference of opinion, have a debate, and see who can make the best case.

3. What qualities of success did Field possess? Look over the poems in "Carrying Hard Tasks Through," Book One, p. 451, and decide which best describes Field and his co-workers.

4. Find the story of the Atlantic Cable in your school history or in an encyclopedia. What differences do you find in details? Which account is more reliable?

5. Compare the difficulties of Field with those faced by McCormick; by the Wright brothers.

6. Make a list of the facts in Field's account. Then discuss what Field does with these facts to weave them into a good story. 7. Did Field actually have a dream about the cable? Explain the last sentence in paragraph 3. Read Braley's "The Thinker,"

p. 114. What was Big Ivan's dream, p. 320, Book One? What was McCormick's dream? What, Wright's?

8. Volunteer investigations. Report during the General Review, p. 338.

a. Peter Cooper's place in American history.

b. Other transcontinental cables.

c. The history of the Great Eastern.

d. The early life of Cyrus W. Field.

e. Read to the class "How Cyrus Laid the Cable," by John G. Saxe, P. Pressey, A Vocational Reader, 107-110.

f. Read Kipling's "The Deep Sea Cables," in The Day's Work, and compare what you find with Field's last paragraph.

3. SEA-FEVER

JOHN MASEFIELD

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sails
shaking,

And a gray mist on the sea's face and a gray dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied.
And all I ask is a windy. day with the white clouds flying
And the flung spray and blown spume and sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant, gypsy life; To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife.

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow rover And a quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's

over.

CLASS ACTIVITIES

Here is a list of sea poems. Read as many as you can find. Select three passages from the poems you read which give you good pictures of the sea. In each poem you read, determine whether the sea is loved or feared. Report during General Review, p. 338.

1. William Wordsworth, "With Ships the Sea was Sprinkled."

Mr. Phileas Fogg, of London, England, had made a wager with four of his friends that he could make a tour of the world in eighty days. Accompanied by his servant, Passepartout, he left London at eight forty-five o'clock on the evening of October 2d, promising to return within eighty days or forfeit to his friends the sum of twenty thousand pounds. By way of Bombay, Calcutta, Hongkong, and San Francisco, after many delays he reached New York only to find that the last steamer by which he could reach London by December 21st, the last of the eighty days, had sailed shortly before his arrival.

At a quarter-past eleven in the evening of the 11th of December, the train stopped in the New York station before

the very pier of the Cunard line, but the China, for Liverpool, had started three-quarters of an hour before! The China seemed to have carried off Phileas Fogg's last hope.

Passepartout was crushed; it overwhelmed him to lose the boat by three-quarters of an hour, but Mr. Fogg on leaving the Cunard pier, only said: "We will consult about what is best to-morrow. Come."

The party crossed the Hudson in the Jersey City ferry-boat, and drove in a carriage to the St. Nicholas Hotel, on Broadway. Rooms were engaged, and the night passed, briefly to Phileas Fogg, who slept profoundly, but very long to the others, whose agitation did not permit them to rest.

The next day was December 12. From seven in the morning of the 12th, to a quarter before nine in the evening of the 21st, there were nine days, thirteen hours and forty-five minutes. If Phileas Fogg had left in the China, one of the fastest steamers on the Atlantic, he would have reached Liverpool, and then London, within the period agreed upon.

Mr. Fogg left the hotel alone, after giving Passepartout instructions to await his return. He went to the banks of the Hudson, and looked about among the vessels moored or anchored in the river, for any that were about to depart. But they were mostly sailing-vessels, of which, of course, Phileas Fogg could make no use.

He seemed about to give up all hope when he spied, anchored at the Battery, a cable's length off at most, a trading vessel, with a screw, well-shaped, whose funnel, puffing a cloud of smoke, indicated that she was getting ready for departure.

Phileas Fogg hailed a boat, got into it, and soon found himself on board the Henrietta, iron-hulled, wood-built above. He ascended to the deck, and asked for the captain, who forthwith presented himself. He was a man of fifty, a sort of sea-wolf, with big eyes, a complexion of oxidized copper, red hair and thick neck, and a growling voice.

"The captain!" asked Mr. Fogg.