The story of the twelve years' struggle to lay an Atlantic cable from Ireland to Newfoundland is the story of one of the greatest battles with the fates that any one man was ever called on to wage. It was a fight not only against the ocean, jealous of its rights as a separator of the continents, and against natural obstacles which seemed absolutely unsurpassable, but a fight against stubborn Parliaments and Congresses, and all the stumbling blocks of human disbelief. But the courage of Cyrus W. Field was indomitable. _His patience and zeal were inexhaustible, and so it came to pass, on July 27, 1866, that this man knelt down in his cabin, like a second Columbus, and gave thanks to God, for his labors were crowned with success at last._ He had lost his health. He had worn out his nervous forces by the tremendous strain, and he paid in excruciating suffering the debt he owed to nature. But he had won a fortune and a lasting fame. THE BOSTON STATUE. In 1849 the Italian merchants of Boston, under the presidency of Mr. Iasigi, presented to the city a statue of Columbus, which was placed inside the inclosure of Louisburg Square, at the Pinckney Street end of the square. The statue, which is of inferior merit, bears no inscription, and is at the present date forgotten, dilapidated, and fast falling into decay. YOU CAN NOT CONQUER AMERICA. FLAVIUS J. BROBST in an article on Westminster Abbey, in the _Mid-Continent Magazine_, August, 1892. Sublimest of all, the incomparable Earl of Chatham, whose prophetic ken foresaw the independence of the American nation even before the battles of Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill had been fought; and who, from the first, in Parliament, rose with his eagle beak, and raised his clarion voice with all the vehemence of his imperial soul in behalf of the American colonies, reaching once a climax of inspiration, when, in thunderous tones, he declared to the English nation, "_You can not conquer America._" THE INDOMITABLE COURAGE OF COLUMBUS. WILLIAM C. BRYANT, an eminent American poet. Born at Cummington, Mass., November 3, 1794; died June 12, 1878. From his "History of the United States." With a patience that nothing could wear out, and a perseverance that, was absolutely unconquerable, Columbus waited and labored for eighteen years, appealing to minds that wanted light and to ears that wanted hearing. His ideas of the possibilities of navigation were before his time. It was one thing to creep along the coast of Africa, where the hold upon the land need never be lost, another to steer out boldly into that wilderness of waters, over which mystery and darkness brooded. THE SANTA MARIA CARAVEL. J. W. BUEL, a celebrated American author.