Ashtabula weekly telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1880-1886, 1880-10-22
The Last Great Invention In Tele.
. graphy.

The Boston Daily AdUerti5er publish
es a description Of an improvement des-
tined to reyolutionize the present system
Of working submarine cables. The
American Cable Company, formed for
the purpose Of introducing and carrying
out these Improvements, was formed in
New York some time ago under the gen.
eral laws Of that State, and is composed
of capitalists prominent in that city,
with several Bostonians. II has been
quietly and steadily progressing toward
the end of its designs. It's purpose is TO
lay some 6,000 miles of superior cable,
connecting New York City directly with
five or six European counties. and the
inventions under its control are Ameri-
can work, which have received the rec
ommendation of Prof. Trowbridge, of
Harvard Prof. Silliman, of Yale Prof.
Dolbear, of Tufts; and many other
scientific men. The work has been pur-
sued with great secresy, and from time
TO time it has been examined by several
scientists, and during the meetings of the
American Association by several Of its
most prominent members. The instru-
ments have been set up in u large room
in the Equitable Building, and a connec-
ton with complete and fully-e Iuipped
ocean cable has been tested by the in
ventor and electricians of established
reputation. The various apparatus
form new and complete system for
working submarine cables and land
line, and they are: A submarine re-
peater relay to be used in connection
with the submarine repeaters, and by
means of which the sound system, the
type-printer, and the automatic system
can be used on cables whereby the speed
may be increased many fold over the
present mode; type-printers of mechan-
ical construction which are capable at
their full capacity of printing fifty eight
Roman letters per second, or $3.50 per
minute, or, allowing six letters for the
average word, printing over 500 words
per minute, while the practical speed is
determined by the skill of the operator
only; and instruments for working the
automatic system on cables of the sew
eral inventions. Most important is the
submarine repeater, to be submerged in
mid-ocean. This consists of bronze
globe of some six inches in diameter,
nodded of a material which is supposed
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water for 1000 years. Inside this case
or globe, hermetically sealed, is the
simple mechanism which performs the
functions of an Office and two operators
at the bottom of the sea in mid-ocean
without the aid of human intervention
at that point. By the use Of the sub
marine repeater a cable of any length,
say 1000 miles, may be divided in the
center into two circuits or lengths of
1000 miles each, and thereby a work
ing speed can be had, according to
established electrical law, four times
greater than on a circuit or cable of
1000 miles. Consequently, one cable
connected by the submarine repeater
would be equal for effective work to any
four of the present Atlantic cables. An
other important fact is that this sub
marine repeater is to make it practical
BILE to operate cable twice the length
of any present cable, say 5000 miles in
length, with the same speed as present
cables are worked. Thus a cable might
be worked between San Francisco and
China, where the distance between land
ing points is too great for practicable or
paying speed by the present system of
cable working. The relays tran uniting
and receiving are to be used in connec-
ton witk the submarine repeater. They
are on an entirely new principle. The
system of working the automatic instru-
ment is most simple, more so than the
Wheatstone, of the so-called "Fast
Rapid" The number of words that
can be sent over a cable by these
new instruments is limited only by the
number of impulses that can be sent
through, and in the case of this new
Company's cable it will be over 1900
pulsations per minute.