The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1892-03-12
BROKEN OCEAN CABLES.
Searching For Broken Ends in Mid Ocean.
From the New York World. Sept. u. 1891.

From the New York World Sept u. 1891.
The Gould or Western Union cables, eX-
tending from ireland to Nova Scotia, are
both broken They have parted somewhere
in the depths of midocean, and some time
next month what is known as cable
steamer will steam out to the location ON the
surface of the mighty deep, somewhere be-
meath which the rupture has occurred, will
haul up the broken ends, splice the four ends
into two cables once more, and electrical
communication between the two countries
over these lines will be restored. Then the
cable steamer will leave the spot, unmarked
in all that vast area of water, save by ref
erence to the stars above and to the sun, and
will sail back to the port where she belongs.
These two Gould cables, it may be ex-
planned. are two of the seven cables COM
prising what is known as the Cable Pool.
OF the remaining five cables four are owned
by the Anglo-American Company, whose
headquarters and whose offices are in En-
gland, and the fifth cable is the Direct Ca
Bile, also owned by Englishmen. These
seven cables, the property of three compa-
MES, pool their earnings under contract
which has been in existence for several
years and divide them according to certain
percentages which were fixed at the time
of the contract. When .ope, or even two,
of the cables break, as is the case at pres
ent, the other cables in the the pool do the
extra work thus entailed on them, and the
gross earnings are divided up just the same
as though noting had happened. As five
cables are quite enough to do all the bust
ness done at present the cable messages suf-
fer ne delay, and the only thing the COM
pany has to do whose cable or cables are
broken is to make the repairs within year,
because if they are delayed beyond that
time the existing contract would be abro
gated.
AN OCEAN CABLE.
The idea of the broken ends of these cablse
lying hundreds of fathoms deep beneath
the track of passing vessels and hundreds
of miles away from land on either side, ap
peals in peculiar way to the ordinary i'm
agination; and it appeals to the imagination
of any one who knows fairly well what the
bottom of the ocean is like more strongly
still than it does to person who has per-
vading notion that the bc.tom of the ocean
is all sand and extends pretty much like a
billiard table from one continent to the
other. But fancy for a moment a cable
strung across the mountains of this conti-
nent and dropping into thevalleys by sheer
force of its own weight; falling from the
pinnacle of Mount Washington and trailing
across the Hudson river, climbing the AL
leghenies and the mountains of Tennessee
and dropping thence into the valley of the
Mississippi, winding across the plains and
climbing the Rocky mountains on the way
to San Francisco, and then food this i'm
mense area with mighty ocean and a
practically faithful picture Of deep-sea
cable is presented. Starting from land on
the other side these Gould cables descend
into the valleys, reach up to the tops of the
hills, turn and twist and go around and
climb across; and fathoms and fathoms
above them the waves break themselves
against each other and storms lash the waters
into fury, or the sunshine spreads them
out serene and placid as mirror. And it
is the picture Of these broken cables brok-
en- half way down hill or buried in the
sands half way across the valley, that capti-
Yates the fancy and makes one wonder over
the science of man which enables him to
pick up those ends from the mysterious
depths of oceans and put them together
again.
DETERMINING POSITION OF THE BREAK.
The location of the cable break is very ac-
curately determined by process known to
electricians and by an instrument which
discloses how far an electrical current, start
ed on given line of wire, travels before it
meets with interruption. The calculation
of the distance to the break made on this
side the Atlanctic can be checked and con-
frmed by similar calculation made on the
other side, although such confirmation is
scarcely necessary. After having found out
how far from land the break is, the only other
thing the captain or navigator of the cable
steamer wants to know is in what direction
that distance is to be travelled; and as the
course of the cable is perfectly well known
from the fact that when the cable was laid
accurate observations We're taken by the
cable layers, and records made, the cable
steamer starting out to do the repairs can
steam directly over the spot where the
break is located
Of course when this statement is male
it is not at all meant that the location can
be determined within few inches or few
feet, but it can be determined within
very limited area, so that the graphing for
the ends of the cable does not usually extend
in good weather over period greater than
two or three days, and sometimes does not
last even so long as that.
GRAPHING.
The graphing irons are immense affairs,
attached themselves to cables manipulated
from the deck of the steamer, and are
plunged downward and dragged over the
bottom of the ocean. When the cable Is
finally grappled the fact is made clear at
the steamer end of the line by reason of
the strain to which the graphing iron is
subjected, precisely as fisherman knows
that he has a fish on his hook by the in-
creased tautness of the line. The only
difference is that in the case of the Crap
pling iron the strain is revealed by an in-
strument on board the steamer known a. a
dynamometer. When this instrument re-
veals the presence of such strain as the
graphing of the cable would bring about,
the iron is hauled up with the cable at the
end of it.
The repairers always calculate to crap
pie the cable about ten miles away from
the point at which the break has occurred.
If the irons grappled the cable too near
the end, the cable would slip away long
before it reached the deck of the steamer,
In some instance no break has occurred at
all, and electrical communication has been
interrupted perhaps by the destruction of
the insulated covering of the cable, or by
some defect of similar character, so that
when the graphing iron appears at the
surface of the water the entire length of
the cable comes up with it. Tie break is