The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1900-05-03
A PACIFIC CABLE.
The Laying of One Would BE Attends
ed with Many Difficulties and
Great Expense.

In view of the constant activity in
Atlantic cables which has resulted in
new cable almost every two years
since the first successful cable in 1866,
it stands to reason, says Scribner's.
Magazine, that the difficulties offered
by the Pacific ocean must be very great;
for the nineteenth century to reach it's
close without a definite scheme for
spanning the Pacific by telegraph hav-
ing been adopted. The difficulties may
be summed up in a few words: First,
the great cost of a complete system
of cables; second, the extreme depth
of water known to exist in certain
parts of the Pacific and feared in 9TH
ers; third, the long distance between
landing points; and, fourth, the lack
of intermediate points having an ac-
tive trade. The estimated cost of the
British Pacific cable, for a single cable
connecting Vancouver with Australia
and New Zealand, is placed at about
$7,000,000, including two repairing
ships and a sum of $4,000 for main
tenance of the cables for six months.
The president of one of the cable com
panies of New York estimates the total
capital cost of cable to Japan, Aus
tralia and the Philippines via Hawaii
at $12,000,00O, and the cost of mainte-
nance, including two repairing ships
and of operating expenses, at 100000
a year.
1t is not considered that a single
cable will be sufficient to insure per-
manent communication, and any
scheme for Pacific cable must pro-
vide eventually for duplicate cables
throughout the entire route, so that
the total capital cost of thoroughly
reliable and efficient Pacific cable sys-
tenn may be put down at approximate
ly $4,000 600, which would include
two repairing ships, reasonable
quantity of spare cable, and the
equipment of operating stations at
the various landing points.
One of the essential features of a
submarine cable is the speed of sig
mailing. In operating long cables very
delicate instruments are required, and
the currents arriving at the receiving
end are very feeble in comparison
with those employed in land-line sig
mailing. The longer the cable, nat
urally the feebler the impulses ar
irving at the receiving end. A short
cable, a cable of under 1000 miles be-
ing generally considered a short cable,
gives a speed of signaling amply suffi-
Gent for all purposes, with a con-
ductor weighing about 100 pounds to
the mile, surrounded by an insulating
envelope of gutta percha weighing
about an equal amount. When we
come to a cable of about twice this
length it is found necessary. in or
der to get practically unlimited
speed, that is, speed as high as the
most expert operator can read at. to
employ a core of $50 pounds of cop
per to the mile, insulated with 400
pounds of gutta percha to the mile.
These are the proportions of copper
and gutta percha in the 1894 Anglo
American Atlantic cable. which is
considered the record Atlantic cable
for speed of working and has been
worked, by automatic transmission,
at the rate of some 45-words a min
ute.
The type of cable proposed for
the MISUNDERSTANDING section of the
British Pacific cable, as designed by
Lord Kelvin, is to have a core of 552
pounds of copper, and 36S pounds
of gutta percha to the mile, and is
calculated to give a speed of ~ words
per minute over length of 1850
miles. 1t is not considered safe to
adopt very much heavier core than
this. for the reason that the weight
of the complete cable with core that
should weigh more than about half
ton to the nautical mile would be
so great that picking it up for repairs
from a depth of 5000 fathoms would
be an extremely difficult and hazard
GUS operation.
The establishment of telegraphic
communication results in new ways
of doing business and opens up new
avenues of profitable endeavor. The
electric current, like that set alive
by royalty or by the president of an
exhibition, sets in motion a variety
of machinery that before lay dor
mant. The trade to the Pacific is
looking up, and hosts of enterprising
Americans are busily engaged in look
ing up that trade. A trans-Pacific
cable is not an absolute necessity, be-
cause communication. certain, if ex-
pensive and relatively slow. between
America and the far east is already
had over the existing system. but that
such cable would soon find profit
able traffic is not to be questioned by
those who are at all familiar with the
rising volume of trade between the
far east and America And be it re-
membered that to-day every CONNER
cial transaction between two points
separated by the sea, like this article,
begins and ends with a cable.
Bees Are Strong.