The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1894-09-15

States, but looES with dlSfaVOr upon
British connection.
When that desirable achievement Is
accomplished the Scriptural proph-
ecy will have been literally fulfilled:
''There is no speech nor language
where their voice is not hear Ccables,
no doubti1. Their line has gone out
throughout all the earth, and their
words to the end of the world"
The price of cabling across the first
Atlantic lines was So per word. Conn
petition between those lines and the
ones laid since has reduced the price
to % cents per word. That is the rate
now between New York and London,
Paris and Berlin. From Chicago, st.
Louis and New Orleans 6 cents per
word is added, and from San Fran
| cisco II cents. To Havana, Cuba, the
Louis and New Orleans is 40 cents per
| word, and from San Francisco so
| cents. To Hongkong the rate from
New York is S1.96 per word; from
Chicago, st. Louis and New Orleans,
| 50 OF, and from San Francisco S2.0S.
To Bombay the rate from New York
| is S1.13; from Chicago, St. Louis and
| Francisco, 1925. To Yokohama, jap
| an, the rate from New York is S2.21;
| from Chicago, st. Louis and New Or
| leans, 1927, and from San Francisco
50 SO. To Cape Town, South Africa,
| the rate from New York is S2.43; from
! Chicago, st. Louis and New Orleans,
| s.. .49, and from San Francisco, $2.55.
| To Auckland, New Zealand-the most
| expensive point to cable tc Just now
the rate from New York rs $2.74 per
/ word; from Chicago, st. Louis and
| New Orleans, $3.50, and from San
| Francisco, S2.S6.
| Viewed in the light of modern inn
| provements in cables, it is a wonder
how the crude and imperfect cables
| first laid ever worked at all. The
| present cost of cables is about 5000
per nautical mile for making and lay
ing.
| Next to the Atlantic cables, the
| greatest difficulties had to be sur
mounted in stretching the land con-
nectiOns across the interminable
steppes of Siberia, through the wilds
of Africa, across Australia and In
| China, where ancient and deep-seated
prejudices from various causes COM
bine to strew the path Of the cable
| promoters with all manner of obsta-
| cles.
The cable has many enemies, both
| in the depths of the sea and at the
shore ends. Great damage has result
ed to them from the ravages OF certain
little marine animal that seem to
H
hempen sheathings and gutta percha
| insulatOrs. There have been cases
where cables have been severed by
| sharks and sw0rdfishes, and one in
stance is recorded where a break was
caused by the ENHANCEMENT of a
whale in loose portion of a cable
that hung between steep slopes OF the
| sea-bed. A piece of the Dover Calais
cable of 1S51-the first successful cable
was taken UP and found to contain
small white insect, not unlike q
maggot, with many legs and promi-
nent black eyes, which had bored
through the outer coverings and gutta
percha down into the inner copper.
Just after the first Dover Calais cable
was laid in 1850, a fisherman plying
his vocation in the channel, caught
up portion of his cable in his trawl,
cut off piece and bore it in triumph
to Boulogne, where he exhibited it as
new and rare specimen of seaweed
with its center filled with gold.
| Whole fishing fleets have been caught
riding at anchor off PenZance during
storms, securely holding on to the
| cables.
In Oriental countries, when tele-
| graphs and cables were new institu-
tions there, great destruction of insu-
lators and land wires was suffered. In
Persia the camel drivers used to
Il
sticks by way of pastims as they rode
along. In South Africa the natives
stole the wires to make ornaments
and savage jewelry for themselves.
Sometimes, owing to lack of sufficient
, "slack" given in laying a cable, the
line becomes suspended over ledges of
rock and is gradually worn away
until the galvanic current escapes
altogether.
Between Great Britain and New
, foundland and the Canadian shore
| extends vast natural plateau, as re-
markaole in its way as is the natural
, lane along the bed of the Pacific from
/ / California to Hawaii. 1t seems TO be
| a freak of nature, designed TO promote
the laying Of cables over it and keep
, ing them out of harm's way. The
2 | water is neither too deep '.or too shall
! low. Its greatest depth is 300 faith
f | Oms. Every year this depth is be-
/ | coming less, by reason of the vast
. ! quantities of cinGers and ashes drop
4 | ped in the water by the steamships,
r which pursue this identical route.
[ ApropOs of the recent Government
d investigation OF armC- plate frauds
s and foul play, several instances were
V chronicled in the early DAYS of cables
a where agents Of rival cable companies
:. and manufacturers succeeded, dis
e guised a. woTkmen employed on the
= cable laying vessels, in inserting nails
Y and wires through the cables and thus
+ destroying the insulation as tie lines
q were paid out. In the Atlantic cable
i, expedition of 1865 three such attempts
u at such villainy were detected, and
IS thereafter the experts and promoters
$ on board the Great Eastern, including
ls Cyrus w. Field himself, took turns in
a watching the men in the tanks tC
D. guard against a repetition of the
,e offense.
le At the end of last year there wer
M SAG miles of electric railways In tn
United States.