The morning call., 1894-07-06
THE PACIFIC CABLE.

The intercolonial conference now in ses-
sion at Ottawa devoted several days to the
subject of submarine cable from Queens
land to Canada, and came to no practical
conclusion on the matter. AS the sessions
were private, the public have no means of
knowing the arguments which were
brought to bear pro and con. People have
merely been told that The conference voted
the cable to be a good thing, as to which
there is no difference of opinion anywhere.
The figures which have been given to the
press imply that the members of the con-
ference did some pretty tall guessing.
They estimated the cost of the cable laid
On the sea bottom at S8,000.000. which
seems a small sum to allow for cable
5000 miles long, running over an unex-
plored ocean bed. In fact, no one can
form any estimate that is worth attention
OF the sum of money which an intercolo-
NAL cable would cost. Mr.. Mackay has
not let the public into the secret of the
cost of the third Atlantic cable, which he
has just laid; and he knew exactly the
ocean bed on which it was to lie. The
surveyor who surveys route for Pacific
cable will have little knowledge Of the
submarine territory he must fathom.
It is assumed that the ocean bed be-
tween Vancouver and Honolulu presents
no abnormal features. After leaving the
shore plateau the depth is supposed to cor
respond to that which has been measured
between Honolulu and San Francisco,
that is to say a pretty uniform depth of
about 1000 fathoms. But this belief rests
mainly on guesswork. No thorough sys-
tenn of surveys has ever been made. Some
four or FIVE hundred miles northeast of the
islands a hole 1850 fathoms deep was
found some time ago; how far this de-
preston extends toward the coast is not
known. Analogy would seem to indicate
that there must be mountains like Mount
Beiknap, probably mountain ranges, be-
tween the islands and British Colum bia.
Nothing has been allowed for these OBJ
staeles in The Ottawa estimates.
From Honolulu to the Equator the depth
of the ocean is reckoned by photographers,
on the strength of a few scattered sound
ings, at from $500 to 5000 fathoms, a far
greater depth than any existing cable lies
at The group of islands stretching from
Palmyra Island to Christmas Island, just
north of the Equator. rise out of depths of
about 2900 fathoms, say three miles, to the
surface of the water; it would be no easy
task to lay a cable along the slope of such
an ACTIVITY. As it would be necessary in
order to minimize the cost of repairs in
case of breaks in the cable to make as
many landings as possible, the line would
run from the Equator TO Samoa. This is
part of the ocean in which few sound
ings have been taken. On the same par
allel as Samoa, to the eastward, depths of
2300 and 2400 fathoms have been found
on the westward the Challenger found a
depth of 4475 fathoms. or about five
and a quarter miles. There is no
power known to mechanical science
which could haul broken cable from
such a depth. Between Samoa and
Tahiti, which would be the next station,
the average depth is assumed. on insult
ficient information. to be about the normal
depth Of the Pacific, say 2300 fathoms; the
sea is studded with islands which rise
from this prodigious depth to form atolls
and reefs. How a cable could be carried
over there is not easy to figure. From
Fiji, which would be the next station. to
Australia the ocean bed rises to an aver
age of 1000 fathoms, and there would
probably be 90 insurmountable difficulty
in the way of laying cable.
A mere glance at these facts show thai
no estimate of the cost Of cable from
Canada to Australia can possibly be made
| without series of elaborate surveys. The
conference might just as we'll have figured
on eighty as eighty millions. Nor is it DOS
sible with our present information to con-
| lecture the cost of maintenance and repairs
| The Atlantic cables lie in level bed oil