avorable, and the parent company found itself without means or
credit. To retain its privileges it must pay additional money, and to
make those privileges worth anything capital must be raised for a third
attempt to lay the transatlantic line.

Without describing in detail the difficulties and anxieties of this
period, it may be said that the intelligent courage of Peter Cooper
saved the enterprise, while it secured to him a large pecuniary reward;
for he perceived that the real problem had been solved by the first
apparent failure; that the failure of a cable in use or the loss of a
cable in laying it were mere incidental misfortunes which more thorough
precautions and better luck would preclude; and he backed with his own
faith and money the undaunted enthusiasm and persuasive eloquence of Mr.
Field, whose expenses he paid for another journey to England, and who
succeeded at last in raising there the funds for the third and
successful attempt. Moreover Mr. Cooper upheld the credit of the
Newfoundland company, personally paying the drafts drawn upon it, and
taking its bonds as his security. It is too much to say that the
Atlantic cable would never have been laid, but there can be no doubt
that the enterprise would have been long suspended, without this timely
aid. The third cable was a success; the lost second was recovered and
made useful; and now the thing is easy which thus seemed so
problematical. If Peter Cooper received in the end a handsome sum from
this investment, who could grudge him the wealth so acquired?

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Many years after his wife's death, and shortly before his own, Mr.
Cooper dictated the following passage, which is almost the last in his
_Reminiscences_:--

"Not only do I think of my wife during my waking moments; she often
comes to me in my dreams, sometimes once a week, sometimes once in two
weeks, and sometimes at longer intervals. It is one of the greatest
pleasures of my life that I can believe that she has been, and is now,
my guardian angel, and it is one of my happiest hopes that I shall see
that this our world is but the bud of a being that is to ripen and bear
its choicest fruits in another and a better."

[2] Letter of Morse to the Secretary of the Treasury in the autumn of
1843.

IV

INVENTIONS

THE inventions projected, though in many instances not perfected or
successfully introduced, by Mr. Cooper constitute a long list and cover
a wide field. A few of t