The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1881-12-02
THE COLUMBIAN, VOL. XIV, NO A.
COLUMBIA DEMOCRAT, VOL. XLvI, NO. 81
Foes of the Telegraph,

If you will kick or pound on telegraph
pole or place your ear against one on a
windy day, what will the noise remind
you of A hive of bees? Precisely So
it does the bears in Norway. Bears are
passionately fond of honey, and when
in one of the wild districts Bruin hears
the humming of the wires he follows
the sound to the post where it is loudcst
aud begins to tear away the stones
heaped round the poles in rocky soil to
steady them, in order to get at the hive
which he imagincs to be there. In his
disappointment and disgust he usually
leaves savage marks of his claws in the
wood Nor is he the only victim of the
wires. In the Electric Exhibition at
Paris they show the top of thick pine
telegraph pole through which wood
| pecker has drilled hole several inches
in diameter. The bird had apparently
perched on the pole and taken the hum
ming of the wires for the buzzing of a
nest of insects in the wood, and had set
himself manful y--or birdfully--to dig
them out. Wolves will not stay in Nor
way where telegraph lines are built.
1t was formerly the custom to protect
farms by planting poles round them
strung with cards, something like rabbit
snares, and gradually the wolves came
to respect these precautions so that a
! line stretched across the neck of PENN
sula would protect the whole district
The wolves take the telegraph for new
and improved snare, and promptly leave
the country when a line is built. On our
own treeless plains the buffalo halls the
telegraph pole rs an ingenious contri
vance for his own benefit. Like all cattle,
he delights in scratching himself, and
he goes through the performance so en-
ergetically that he knocks down the
post. An early builder of telegraph
lines undertook to protect the posts
by inserting brad-awls into the wood.
but the thick-skinned buffalo found the
brad-awl an Improvement as affording
| him a new sensation, and scratched down
| more poles than ever. In Sumatra the
elephants are Systematically opposed to
| telegraph lines, and at least twenty times
n year make raids on them. In May,
1876, the elephants tore down the poles
for distance of several furlongs and hid
the wires and insulators in the cane Jun
gle, and for three nights in succession
they repeated the performance as regu-
larlv as the repairers rebuilt the line du-
ring the day. The monkeys and apes
are about as formidable enemies, as they
use the wires for swings and trapezes
and carry off the glass insuators as val
liable prizes; then, when the repairer
goes to correct the mischief, he may be
pounced upon by tiger or driven up
the post by mad buffalo. In Japan
the special enemies of the telegraph are
the spiders, which grow to an immense
size and avail themselves of the wires as
an excellent framework for their webs
So thick are the cords the japanese spi-
ders spin that often. especially when
they are covered with dew, they serve to
connect the wires with each other or the
ground, and so stop them from work
ing. In the sea the wires are not any
safer, as a small worm has developed it
self since cables came into fashion which
bores through iron and gutta-percha,
and so destroys wire worth millions of
dollars. When great storm comes on
in the centre of the ocean and the cable
breaks while it is being laid or threatens
to break, no one is alarmed. They fast
en- the cable to a buoy and come back
afterwards and pick it up, or if it is at
the bottom of the sea they drop dredge
with mile or so of rope, and fish out
the precious thread, as large as one of
your fingers, almost as easily as you
would fish up penny from the bottom
of tub of water with the tongs. But
the little worm no bigger than needle
is more formidable than the elephant OF
shore or the hurricane at sea.