Financial markets in most parts of the country were now connected by telegraph; the novelty of instant communication charged these markets with a volatility that caused a rumor in one region to become a crisis somewhere else. Depositors made runs on banks, which had to call in loans to obtain specie. This caused over-extended speculators and entrepreneurs to go under. A wave of panic selling hit Wall Street. As the ripple of these failures began to spread through the country in September, a ship carrying $2 million in gold from California went to the bottom in a storm.
