 Instead and coincident with the failure of the telegraph line across the Atlantic, he proposed an intercontinental telegraph line.This line would run through either Canada or the western United States, into British Columbia, the northern British territories, into Russian America (Alaska), over the Bering Strait to Siberia and then along the Amur to Irkutsh and thence Europe.Success of such a scheme, Collins anticipated, would deliver all intercontinental communication into the hands of the Americans.