The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1894-03-02
PROJECTED OCEAN CABLES.
Improvements in Making and Lay
ing Them.

nleS. anu lIlS year may We Olc vi Iilc
most noteworthy in the history of
submarine telegraphing. The Anglo
American Cable Company will lay a
new Atlantic cable this spring. The
cable is now making in England, and
it is to differ in at least one striking
regularity from all other submarine
cables. its copper conducting wire
will weigh $50 pounds per knot. Hith-
erto no cable has had a conductor
weighing so much as 500 pounds per
knot, and most of the Atlantic cables
have conductors weighing 400 pounds
or less per knot. Many short cables,
and even some long ones in tropical
waters, have cores weighing as little as
1O7 mounds. Cables 1900 miles long on
the east coast of Africa have cores
weighing 80 pounds to the knot. The
heaviest core is that of the French
cable from st. Pierre Miquelon to
Brest. 1t is 2242 miles long and weighs
ass pounds per knot.
The estimated cost for making and
laying long cables is about $1,000 per
knot. 1t is supposed that the cost OF
the proposed Pacific cable will be
somewhat greater, because it must be
laid at so great a distance from any
point where the cable itself is likely
70 be manufactured. The total length
of that cable, exclusive nf 40 knots
already laid in Austria lasian waters,
will be about 5000 knots, if San Fran
cisco shall be the terminus in this
country, and some hundreds of miles
longer should Vancouver be the ter
minus. The cost at $1,000 per knot
would he about $1,000, 600 for the cable
and laying alone.
The estimated price ,of $1,000 per
knot for making and laying cables in
cludes everything that the contractor
is usually required TO do. The speci-
ficatiops included in the contract for
the making and laying of a great
cable enter into elaborate minutie
touching what is required on both
sides. There are stipulatiOns as TO the
weight and quality of everything that
enters into the cable. Then the num-
her of tons strain that the cable must
be capable of enduring, the method of
making Joints and of testing them,
and the method of indicating the
length of the cable at given points
are all set down in the specifications.
The engineers Of the company are to
have the right while the cable is lay
ing to communicate with the shore
end from time to time. Cables are
usually paid for in installments as so
much of the cable is manufactured.
The contractor Is commonly required
TO insure the cable in transit from
loss or damage by fire or sea. In the
case Of one important cable it was
stipulated that the contractors might
ship at their own risk such lengths of
cable as they thought fit beyond the
specified lengths, and that should any
such extra cable be laid with the con-
sent of the company's engineers, it
should be paid for at the rate of G220
per knot up to 100000. The contract
or's ship usually lies at hand for some
weeks after the cable is laid in order
TO make needed repairs while the tests
are in progress. The contractor must
land the cable and carry it under
ground to a point at a safe distance
beyond high tide.
When cables were first laid it was a
difficult matter to find manufacturer
to make them. The field was a new
one, and all the conditions were
strange. In less than forty years,
however, the making OF submarine
cables has been brought TO a wonder
full degree of perfection, though that
dream of the electrician, a cable that
shall carry the human voice from
America to Europe. has not yet been
attained. There are now, however,
more than forty manufacturers of
cables and about two score vessels !
specially constructed for cable laying. |
Most of the factories are in Great |
Britain, but the cable ships are scat !
tered over the globe. Three are regu- |
larly stationed at Halifax, seven at |
London, four at SilvertOwn, two at |
Singapore, two in the West Indies, |
two at CalIao, three in the Mediter-
ranean, one at Gibraltar, one at Alden,
one at Shanghai, one at Copenhagen,
one at Brest, one at Perpambuco and
one at Montevideo, with others at
points in China, India and Australia.
They are held in readiness to go to
any point within their jurisdiction for
repairs upon Geographic notice.
The world is now so melted with ca
bles, great and small, and new ones
are laid so frequently, that there is
much demand for the services of the
cable-Iaying ships. A list of the
worlds cables, long and short, set
down in tabulated form, occupies
twenty large and closely printed
pages. The cable map of the world
prepared by the United States Navy
Department shows that the Mediter-
ranean is thickly Melted with cables
west of Malta SO is the North At
lantic between the thirty-eighth and
fifty-fifth parallels. The North Sea,
the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea
have many cables. The only great
unbridged spaces are the Pacific, the
South Atlantic, and the great stretch
of the Indian Ocean between Mad
agascar and Australia. There is no
considerable cable north of Stockholm
or south of Nelson, New Zealand.
The Black Sea is completely girdled by
land lines and crossed by one cable.
The Gulf of Mexico is crossed, though
not at its widest, by several cables,
and the waters of the West Indies are
becoming thickly Melted with short
cables. Coast communications in the
United States and Europe are main
tanned mainly by land lines, but in
Africa, South America and much of
Asia the same thing is attained by