The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1883-04-26
Long Distance Telephoning.

4 notable experiment in long distance
telephoning was recently made on the
new compound steel-eopper wire of the
Postal Telegraph Company, lately COM
pleted between New York and Cleve-
land. Ohio, stretch OF $50 miles
The compound wire has diameter
Of seven-thirty-secon of an inch, con-
sists of steel wire core, weighing 200
pounds per mile, that will resist a tensile
strain of 1.650 pounds. on which cop
per is deposited to the extent of 500
pounds per mile, with resistance
TO the electric current not exceed
ing one and seven-tenths ohm. The
wire has seven times greater con-
ductiyity than iron wire of equal size,
copper being the best conductor known
except silver. 1t has double the tensile
strengt of iron wire on equal weight when
when strung on the lines, willlast long
er. permit sthe use of low tension currents
and small batteries.
Ninety per cent of the wires now in
use are No. 9 iron, with a resistance of
90 ohms per mile, and the very best are
No. iron, with resistance of 10 ohms,
while the compound wire to be used by
this company has a resistance of only
one and seven-tenths ohlns. The resist
ance of No. } iron wire on a line from
New York to Chicago, 1000 miles, is
over 10000 ohms, and on No. 6 iron
wire over 10000 ohms, and on COM
pound Wire less than LOO ohms, thus
bringing Chicago GEOGRAPHICALLY as
near to New York as Philadelphia,
and San Francisco rs near as Cleveland,
compared with the best wires now in
use.
When the two compound wires are
completed between this city and Chicago,
their operating capacities viii, it is said,
be thirty thousand messages per day.
The new conductor is certainly great
improvement over any land line of SINH
lar length heretofore established. and its
successful completion marks the open
ing of a new era in the progress of cleo
trical communication.
We learn from Mr. F. G. Gushing, the
manager of the Postal Telegraph Co. in
this city, that speaking trial was made
ever the new line from New York to
Cleveland, the transmitting telephone
used being that of Mr. Geo NJ Hopkins.
The words spoken in this city were, it
is said, distinctly heard in Cleveland.
The success of the experiment was so
conclusive as to satisfy the officers of
the company that in the near future the
length of the telephone circuits may be
greatly extended; and they believe Chi
cago will shortly be brought within hear
ing of New York, a distance of about
one thousand miles.
The peculiar feature of the Hopkins
tranmsitter is that one end of the carbon
electrode issupported upon or floats on a
liquid--mercury-the fluid serving TO
press the electrode into contact with
the carbon. button of the telephone
diaphragm, without the Intervention of
q spring or weight. 1t is, therefore. q
self-adjusting instrument, always in
readiness for speaking. whether subject
to the loudest or softest tones, un~.cn tho
longest or the shortest lir,,s ''''
We congratulate u .ne Postal Teleora,b
Company nPon the successful operation
OF tbs first link of their new wire. It
IS hkeiy to revolutionize the telegraphic
service OF the world by leading the way
to the substitution of easy, economical.
and scientific lines and modes of work
ingin place of the present system, which,
by comparison, are difficult, costly to
operate, and unscientific.- Scientific
american