Cables

in telegraphy, wires stretched at the bottom of the ocean for the purpose of transmitting messages. In 1844 Morse made his great discovery of the electric telegraph. In 1850 a cable twenty-seven miles long was laid across the English Channel, but it chafed apart on a jagged reef after a day's service. The next year a stronger cable was laid across the channel. Its success fired Cyrus W. Field, a wealthy American merchant, with the project of laying a cable across the Atlantic. The plan was ridiculed in public journals on both sides of the ocean. In 1857, however, two warships, one American, one British, undertook to lay a cable, starting from the Irish coast; but it parted 250 miles out at sea. Nothing daunted, Field was ready with a larger cable the next year; and it was successfully laid from Valentia, Ireland, to Heart's Content, Newfoundland. On August 8th, at 11:12 A. M., Queen Victoria addressed President Buchanan in a short message beginning "Glory to God in the Highest," and President Buchanan made a suitable reply. The London Times reported the marvelous success of the cable, stating that "the highest exaggerations of an Arabian tale have been outdone by this simple achievement of modern times." Queen Victoria's message of ninety words required sixty-seven minutes in transmission, the sending and receiving instruments being a little imperfect. After conveying forty telegrams in twenty-three days' time, the cable ceased to work. In 1865 Field started from Valentia with a $3,000,000 cable, but it parted in mid ocean. In 1866, undismayed by the loss of three fortunes, Field was ready again with still another cable which was laid successfully July 27, 1866. The first important news was the signing of the treaty of 1866 between Prussia and Austria. At first the tariff was five dollars a word. It has now been reduced (1905) to twenty-five cents.

Submarine cables have been extended under nearly all large bodies of water. A cable was laid in the Mediterranean in 1869; in the Red Sea, 1870; the Indian Ocean, 1871; Australia was reached in 1872; New Zealand, 1876. The cable of 1866 was surrounded and guarded by 140 small wires. Each mile weighed 2,600 pounds and cost $1,500. The English cable of 1901 to Australia is 15,000 miles long. It was made in several sections. Each mile weighed 3,000 pounds and cost $1,800. The present (1905) business of the Atlantic cables amounts to something less than 20,000 messages a day, or 7,000,000 messages a year. About 35,000,000 words are transmitted at an annual charge of $7,500,000. The charge for messages to Australia is $1.18 a word. There are now about 1,700 submarine cables, with a mileage sufficient to go around the world eight times and costing about $200,000,-000. They are considered a profitable financial investment at that.

Submarine cables are manufactured chiefly in England. A modern cable consists of one central copper wire, surrounded by twelve smaller ones wound rope fashion about it. The diameter of the entire twist is about one-fourth of an inch. This copper rope or core is encased in a gutta-percha covering, making the diameter about three-fourths of an inch. Hemp and canvas tape are wrapped about the gutta-perch, and an armor of steel wires is wrapped about this again, the crevices being filled up with an asphaltic cement. The cable is put up in two-mile sections, and is tested carefully for conductivity and possible leakage before it is transferred from the factory. In laying a cable the sections are stored in the ship in tanks of seawater. The section which is laid next the shore is guarded carefully to prevent possible chafing against rocks. It is laid at about the rate of five miles an hour. The working ship is in constant communication with the shore through the portion of the cable which has been laid. In case of a break or fault in a cable, electricians have now become so expert that they can locate the defect within a mile. Repair ships have in this way been enabled to grapple a broken cable within a few hundred yards of the actual break in mid ocean. Forty-one ships are kept busy laying and repairing cables in various parts of the world, so extensive has the business become. Cables have been brought up from a depth of 15,000 feet, that is to say, three miles of water. One case of repairs is on record which cost the company $50,000. The longest message on record is one of 115,000 words describing King Edward's coronation.

England owns about sixty per cent of the world's cables. The British prime minister can send a cable message around the world, by way of Ireland, Newfoundland, Vancouver, and Australia, to London again without using foreign facilities. Recent American developments are a second Pacific cable from San Francisco to Manila, and another from Seattle to Sitka.

Messages to Manila cost $2.35 a word. France ranks third in the list of cable-owning countries; Denmark, fourth; Germany, fifth. Seventeen other countries are minor owners.

See Gutta-Percha; Great Eastern; Field; Morse; Wireless Telegraphy