The incredible story of the laying of a communications cable across the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean and how it changed the Victorian world.
Today, in a world in which news flashes around the globe in an instant, the sort to information time lags experienced in Victorian days are almost inconceivable. The communications revolution was started by a group of entrepreneurs who fought to realise a dream to lay a telegraphic cable across the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean linking Britain and the US by minutes rather than weeks. The endeavour joined together the greatest minds on both sides of the ocean including Samuel Morse and Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
This book tells the story of this epic struggle as stray vessels, whales and the fiercest storms the Atlantic had seen in many years all proved obstacles in laying the cable. It was a struggle that would require a decade of effort and millions of dollars in capital as well as uncommon physical, financial, and intellectual courage.
But after the first, famous message from Queen Victoria to President James Buchanan was sent across the ocean, taking sixteen and a half hours to communicate, at ten minutes a word, these men had changed the world.
