The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1899-04-11

Obstacles Which Have
Been Removed.
Landing Places Now Provided for
the Wires From San Francisco
to the AsiariC Coast.

The submarine telegraphs of the
or submarine telegraph across the
Pacific, are discussed at considerable
length in the January number of the
Summary of Commerce and Finance,
just issued by the Treasury bureau of
statistics, says the Washington Star.
The settlement shows that the subma-
rine telegraphs of the world number
500. Their aggregate length is 170,-
1000 miles; their total cost is estimated
at $3.50, 600, and the number of mes
Isages annually transmitted over them
6,000,00
Adding to the submarine lines the
land telegraph systems the total length
of telegraph lines of the world is $780,
600 miles; the length of their single
wires or conductors, $500 900 miles,
and the total number of messages an
nually sent over them, 365 600, 600, or
an average Of 100000 each day Of
the 10000 miles of submarine tele-
graphs, about 10000 belong to the
thirty-five companies operating the
commercial cables, which number
about 800; the remainder are mostly
short lines controlled by governments,
and connecting forts, batteries, signal
stations, light houses, ETC., the aggre-
gate eof government lines being about
| 1, $50 and their total length about TO-
900 miles. In addition to this, the
governments of the world hold about
$4,000 miles of cable in stock for war
purposes, ready to be laid at mo-
nent's notice.
| Every body of water lying between
| the inhabited portions of the earth,
with the single exception of the Pacific
iocean, has been crossed and recrossed
by submarine telegraph lines. Even
| that vast eXpanse of water has been
| invaded along its margin, submarine
wires stretching along its western bor
der from Siberia to Australia, while
Its eastern borders are Skirted with
lines which stretch along the western
Icoasts of the two Americas. Several
adventurous pioneers in Pacific tele-
igraphy have ventured to considerable
distances and depths in that ocean, one
cable line running from Australia tic
New Zealand, distance Of over 1,00C
miles, and another extending from
| Australia to the French colony OF
New Caledonia, 500 miles seward.
OBSTACLES TO A PACIFIC CABLE
The chief obstacle in the past tc
the construction Of grand trans
IPacific cable was found in the fact tha
Imidocean resting places could not bt
Satisfactorily obtained or arranged for
no single government controlling {
lsufficient number of suitable landing
lplaces to make this seem practicable
in view of the belief that the distances
|from which messages could be SEN
land cables controlled were limited.
With landing places at Hawaii, Wake
Island, Guam and the Philippines, how
lever, no section OF cable stretching
from the United States to Asia and
touching at these points would have a
length equal to that now in daily oper-
Iation between France and the United
States. The length of the French cable
from Brest, France, to Cape Cod, Mass.
is $3.50 miles, while the greatest dis
lance from land to land on the propos-
ed Pacific route would be that from San
Francisco to Hawaii, 2,OS9 miles, that
ifrom Hawaii to Wake Island being
, 040 miles, from Wake Island to Guam
1 ,290 miles, from Guam to Manila L.
$40 miles, and from Manila to the Ash
attic coast $50 miles
| While the depth Of the Pacific is
somewhat greater than that at which
| any cable has been laid, the difference
between it's depth and the greatest
reached by cables in the Atlantic would
| be very slight, the cable recently laid
| from Haiti to the Windward Islands
being in $4,000 feet OF water, while the
greatest depth between San Francisco
and Hawaii is 1890 feet, and the
greatest depth between Hawaii ana
Manila is estimated at 1860 feet,
though this estimate is yet to be veri-
| fed by detailed soundings.
Otto Krummel, who was the first to
discuss the bathymetric data and cal
culate the area and volume of the va
rious oceanic basins, put the mean
depth Of the Pacific at ,160 fathoms,
against 2040 for the Atlantic, in which
cables have already been so success
fully laid, and later researches and ac-
tual soundings, while they have de-
veloped extreme depths at certain
points in the Pacific, have not, in the
Oniuion Of ovnort. Iaan r,,cb ac 70