The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1891-06-19
RINE GABLES PULLED UP.
Queer Fishing With Propeller Screws
and Vessel Anchors.

Queer Fishing With Propeller Screws
and Vessel Anchors.
Herbert L. Webb in Electrical Engineer.
Submarine cables laid in shallow waters
are often exposed to greater risks aud
rougher treatment than the great ocean
cables, which sometimes cost their owners
small fortune in repairs. Not long ago
an ocean going steamship, in leaving her
dock at Jersey City, plowed up the soft
bottom with her powerful propeller, and
secured a costly and valuable catch
in the shape of about a dozen sub
marine cables. which enmeshed them
selves in the blades of the pro-
peller SO effectively that all the cables were
torn asunder and the ship had to go into dry
dock to clear her screw of the garlauds of
iron, hemp and Kerite with which it had
become embellished-not to say embar-
raised. The learned judge who presided
over the argument as to whether the tele-
graph company, which owned the cables, or
the steamship company, which owned the
inquisitive vessel, was the aggrieved party,
decided in favor of the latter, holding that
harbor is to be kept free for navigation
and that d steamer is entitled to plow
through mud as we'll as water, cables or no
cables. If the cables were thought to be
secure because they were lodged in two feet
of silt, why so much the worse Tor the
cables, or rather for their owners.
According to the learned judge, ocean
steamers possess the right of wy through
the silt, even down to hard rock. and the
waters of harbor for purposes of naviga-
ton have no bottom" This is cold COM
fort for owners of submarine cables in har-
bors, but by way of adding insult to injury
the very practical suggestion was made
that cables might be laid III species OF
submarine TRENCH and thus be kept out Of
harms way when ocean steamers Tor others
find it necessary to take the ground"
1t is quite conceivable that the powerful
machinery of an ocean steamer should make
light work OF gathering up and rending
into fragments a dozen or so of submarine
cables, but that river tug should take to
the same game and twist some hundred feet
or so of heavily~armored seven-conductor
cable into bunch of Gordian knots is a
little too much. The cable is the property
Of the American Telephone and Tele>
graph Company and serves to con-
meet the pole line across Staten
Island with that running through New
Jersey, the cable crossing the Kills between
Linoleumville and Carteret. The tug
caught up the cable in the most approved
manner, according to the laws of harbor
nhVlsdUiOu snatcueu IL from lIs qulet resi-
ing place in the silt. and a stern battle be-
tween the pugnacious propeller and the in-
offensive and defenseless Though armored)
cable ensued. Needless to say the propeller
was victorious. The iron armor resisted
vigorously, but it was never intended to
withstand the attack of river tugs pro-
peller, so. after stout resistance, accom-
panied by endless writings and contortions,
it succumbed. The sea serpent itself
hau cd
fight. If the cable was vanqnished,
its enemy was also, at least for time, placed
hors de combat for, SO closely were pro-
peller and cable interlooked in their deadly
feud that the tug:: had to be brought to New
York and put in dry dock in order to separ-
ate them. The snarl contails about 100 feet
Of cable, and bears strong evidence as to
construction. Few would believe that
cable could resist long enough to be twisted
up into such hideous shapes instead OF
breaking almost at once. The cable, which
is a seven conductor, Kerite make. has been
down for about five years and was found to
be in perfect condition when repairs were
made. Indeed, the snarl testifies to that.
Not long ago Frank Stockton contributed
TO one OF the magazines nonsensical story,
in which a startling incident was narrated.
BY stroke OF lightning a steamer had
been converted into an immense magnet,
and had attracted TO itself a submarine ca
BILE, which held it fast until the cable ship
came to the rescue. This flight of fancy is
not altogether without excuse. There is
STORY of an ocean steamship catching up
piece of the cable in the North river, and
towing it all the way from New York to
Liverpool and back without discovering to
what mysterious cause the strange reduction
of speed on the round trip could be at
tributed. There is yet another story of a
Sound boat which fouled submarine cable
in New York waters and fowed a goodly
length or it to New Haven. There the
piece Of cable was cleared away, cooled
down on the dock, and subsequently, sold
by the steamboat company to another
corporation whose business it il to maintain
electrical communication between places.
That corporation put the cable into service,
aad $50 the story goes Is using it at the
present time.
DR. T. M Holmas Daad