it was begun in
doubt and completed with difficulty. Thence it stretched itself out
first to Philadelphia and New York, then to other principal cities, and
afterward along the great thoroughfares. On the other side of the sea it
advanced from city to city, and from one market to another.

At first laid with hesitation underneath the rivers, it was next carried
beneath narrow seas, and at last plunged into the ocean and passed from
continent to continent. Compare its feeble beginning with its
achievement of to-day. Think of the uncertainty with which, after weary
months upon dusty Maryland roads, the last link of that first line was
closed, and then think of the exultation with which great ships in
mid-ocean brought up from the bottom of the sea a cable lost two miles
down, and the problem was forever solved, not only that an
ocean-telegraph cable was possible, but that it could not be so lost as
that it might not be found.

Standing in the presence of the great inventor, I am constrained to
congratulate him upon the fulness of his triumph as he remembers the
early effort, and contrasts it with the marvels of this night in this
hall. That little instrument, no larger than the clock upon the chamber
mantel, and making as little noise, is yet speaking to both America and
Europe; and what it says will be printed before the dawn, and laid at
morning under the eyes of millions of readers. Did I say before the
dawn? It will meet the dawn in its circuit before it reaches the
confines of eastern Europe. In the opposite quarter, we know that the
message which has just left us for the West will outstrip the day. Even
while I have been speaking, the message has crossed the Mississippi,
passed the workmen laying the farthest rail of the Pacific road, bounded
over the Sierra Nevada, and dashed into the plains of California, as the
last ray of to-day's sun is fading from the shore, and the twilight is
falling upon the Pacific Sea.

It is, however, not alone its history which justifies us in predicting
for the telegraph indefinite extension. Its essential character must
sooner or later carry it to every part of the habitable globe. Of all
the agencies yet vouchsafed to man, it is the most accessible and the
most potent. While the machinery itself is simple and cheap, the element
from which it is fed is abundant and all-pervading. It is in the heaven
above, in the earth beneath, and in the water under the earth. You take
a little cu