The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-02-12
THE SUBMARINE CABLE TO ASIA.

From, the N. r Times.
The Committee on Commerce has reported
without amendment the bill to encourage
telegraphic communication between the
Eastern and Western hemispheres, or in
other words, the Pacific cable bill. The pro-
ject itself is an old one, antedating the pur-
chase of Alaska, and indeed begun, we be-
ieve, before the first Atlantic cable was laid.
In its original shape, however, it relied more
on the land route than at present. In those
earlier days of submarine telegraphy, the
chances of failure in long ocean lines, and
the losses which failure involved, induced
engineers TO plan the shortest possible sub
marine routes, no matter what additional
and costly land connections might have to
be added. The tempting proximity of the
Northwestern corner of this continent to the
Northeastern corner of Asia was therefore
one of the chief inducements for an expert
ment in that region, and expensive explora-
tions have been made for q new line of tele-
graph to run along the coast through Wash
ington Territory, British Columbia, and a
part of Russian America, and thence across
to Siberia, and again down the opposite Pa
cific shore.
All this is changed now. The ocean is per-
haps the cheaper route No Pacific ''tele-
graph plateau, we believe, has been mapped
out with the accuracy claimed for the similar
Atlantic bed; and, in new ocean, with un-
known elements entering into the problem,
there will still be something doubtful and ex-
perimental in the task. But, on the other
hand, that old element of uncertainty as to
whether any telegraphic wire could be sue
cessfully worked when submerged hundreds
or thousands of miles exposed to ocean cur
rents and to chemical and mechanical
changes, has long since been removed. We
! find, therefore, that though q long line of
| telegraph was originally projected, and partly
built through British Columbia, this forms no
part of the new enterprise.
The bill reported by Mr.. Corbett provides
| that the starting point for the cable shall be
| south of Cape San Juan, in Washington Ter
ritory. The line which the American and
Asiatic Telegraph Company originally esti-
mated, and to which substantially, we pre-
sumo, they still adhere, was about 5000 miles
long. But the islands of the Pacific offer a
great advantage in breaking this long line;
and in this respect the enterprise is less
hazardous. SO far as the establishment of the
| line is concerned, than its Atlantic predeces-
| sors. The distance from San Francisco to
| Cape San Juan, in Washington Territory, is
| 700 miles, and this part of the line is already
built. There begins the ocean cable
proper, which, proceeding northwesterly,
finds its first station at Sitka, a distance
| of 63O miles Thence proceeding due
west 800 miles, it touches Kodiak,
where we have, or lately had, military
most. Thence, stretching southwesterly
along the Alaska peninsula and the Aleutian
group of islands 45O miles, it touches Oonal
aska. From that point it Leaves american Am est
islands behind, and $50 miles TO the west
reaches the Island of Attou, and with ool
miles more. Urup, the latter on the Asiatit
shore. Another stretch of 300 miles carries
it to Hakodadi, in Japan, where its mission
proper as an ocean cable may be said to end
But, with a northerly move of 200 miles
reaches Poseyat, where, on the mainland Q
Asia, it will connect with branch, alread!
built, of that great Russian overland route
which continues to the mouth of the Amoo
river. From Poseyat southerly trend OF 65'
miles (also submarine) carries the cable 4
NagasalKi, whence easterly branch ma
! continue COO miles to Yokohama, and