e would be very much diminished
by the fact that it would be of such strength, that, even if broken, it
could be recovered, as has been done in the Mediterranean; and besides,
the principal and most expensive materials, copper and gutta-percha,
being indestructible, would have at all times a market value.

Other routes to Europe have been proposed, and have been at times quite
popular, the most feasible of which are those _via_ Behring's Straits,
or the Aleutian Islands, and _via_ Labrador, Greenland, Iceland, and the
Faroe Isles.

To the route _via_ Behring's Straits there are several grave objections.
The distance from New York to London by a route crossing the three
continents of America, Asia, and Europe, is about eighteen thousand
miles, or more than nine times as great as that from Newfoundland to
Ireland. Of course, the mere cost of constructing a continuous telegraph
three-quarters of the distance around the globe, and of maintaining
the hundreds of stations that would be necessary over such a length
of land-lines, would be enormous. But even that is not the chief
difficulty. A line which should traverse the whole breadth of Siberia
would encounter wellnigh insuperable obstacles in the country itself, as
it would have to pass over mountains and across deserts; while, as it
turned north to Kamtschatka, it would come into a region of frightful
cold, where winter reigns the greater part of the year. Of this whole
country a large part is not only utterly uncivilized, but uninhabited,
and portions which are occupied are held by savage and warlike tribes.

Of the Greenland route, Doctor Hayes, the well-known Arctic traveller,
expresses himself in the most decided manner, that it is wholly
impracticable. He says it must be obvious that the ice which hugs
the Greenland coast will prevent a cable, if laid, from remaining in
continuity for any length of time. Doctor Wallich, naturalist attached
to Sir Leopold McClintock's expedition to survey the Northern route,
considers it impracticable on account of the volcanic nature of the
bottom of the sea near Iceland, and the ridges of rock and the immense
icebergs near Greenland.

The main argument in favor of this route, in preference to the more
direct one across the Atlantic, is, that it would be impossible to work
in one continuous circuit a line so long as that from Newfoundland to
Ireland. This would seem to be answered sufficiently by the success of
the old Atlantic c