Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-11-10
TO LAY A NEW CABLE
THE BURNSIDE SOON TO BEGIN
WORK IN THE PHILIPPINES
A Difficult Task on Account of the
Variations of Ocean
Depths.

Within a short time the work Of laying
the inter-island cable In the Philippines
| will be begun For some time the difficulty
| of communication between the islands has
| seriously hampered American operations In
| the Philippines and has been the subject Of
! complaints to the government from Gen.
| Otis, Gen. Macarthur and other officers. 1t
| was obvious that some method of quick
| communication must be put into operation.
as the DISPATCHES carried by the warships
were in many cases too slow of delivery to
| be practicable. AS soon as this important
undertaking of laying a cable had been de-
| cided upon the War Department set about
| finding a suitable vessel In the transport
| service. The Burnside was chosen on &C
| count of her large capacity, and her shall
| low drauSht In proportion to her size. She
| Is the first cable ship ever owned by the
| United States
| Spain and named the Rita. She was cap
| tured during the war by the Yale while try
! ing to run the blackade off Porto Rico with
| a cargo of arms and ammunition towed to
Charleston, s. c., and there taken charge
! of by Capt Latin, her present commander
renamed and put into commission first as
transport carrying mules and general gov
eminent stores to Cuba and afterward
| troopship Taken to the Morse Iron Works
| in Brooklyn the Burnside was there recon-
structed and transformed into cable
J SltdIleI nc CdDlUS ana saloon were re-
| furnished with view to accommoda ting
| army officers and their wives en- route to
| the Philippines. Three huge tanks made
| of copper were placed in her hold each cap
| able Of holding 80 miles OF cabls These
| tanks are twenty-five feet in diameter and
| fifteen feet in depth. with an iron core In
the center to keep the cable in position
when being paid out from the ship.
The Submarine Cable.
Captain Squires of the Signal Corps as
sisted by Mr. Hamilton. will have entire
charge Of the cable laying. with a special
cable crew of twenty men. A submarine
cable is Of two sizes, the core or deep sea
portion, and the armor part or shore ends,
the latter being several times larger than
the former to withstand successfully the
wear and tear of sea wash and tide, an
chors and other shallow water injury
The core consists of seven fine copper
wires which carry the current, covered
with pure para rubber, which is again sur
rounded by para rubber compound and
then wound around with cloth tape saturat-
ed with tar. making the entire cable about
fve-eighths of an inch in thickness and
weighing fifty tons to the thirty-five mics
of cabia length. This is the deep sea cable.
The shore end cable is somewhat different
ly constructed. The core is covered with
what is called a beading made of jute yarn
saturated with tar. Then comes an armor
of sixteen mild steel wires and an outer
and coated with lime, making the total
thickness two and nve-eighths inches.
Gutta pcrcha in the manufacture of cables
has been displaced entirely by pure para
rubber, the latter having been found the
best to withstand the depredations Of the
toredo, insect that eats its way to the
core of the cable for the sake Of the
gutta percha, finally reaching the copper
wire and thus severing the Geographic COM
munica ton.
A New York company manufactured 547
miles of the 625 mics of cable taken by
the Burnside, being the greatest length OF
submarine cable ever made in this coun-
try. The cost was between $500 and $1,UOU
per mile.
Difficult Undertaking.
Laying the cable is going to be a difficult
and delicate job. A crew of more than
twenty men will have the handling of the
cable, and their duty will be to see that 1t
is paid out properly and that it runs
smoothly from the great tanks to the deck
and thence out into the water. II the ocean
bed were fairly level cable laying would be
a comparatively easy operation. But in the
Philippine Island region the sea bottom IL
extremely rough. full of high mountains
and deep chasms. Moreover, the charts
are few and what there are are mainly UNI
reliable. Consequently the cable layers will
not know until they find out for themselves
when the slender strand Is stretching up
the side of submarine mountain and when
Burnside has done her work there will be
some new information regarding the ocean
bottom between the more important islands
that will be valuable to navigators
On reaching the point whence the cable
Is to be laid the crew proceed to land the
heavy shore ends. this being done by haul
Ing from the beach with ropes and support
ing the cable with rubber air balloons until
sufficient length is landed. Connection hav-
ing been made with the signal station on
shore. the Burnside will set out for the
shore with which communication will be
established. going at rate of from -four
to eight knots an hour She must proceed
cautiously as the rate at which the cable
is paid cut depends on the depth Of the
water. In 1000 fathoms Of water for in
stance the length Of cable from the ship
to the point of contact with the ocean bed
is twenty miles. A sudden shallow from
very deep water as in the case of a SUBJ
marine mountain. is likely to break the
cable by too sharply shortening the slack.
Then the tedious work of graphing for the
broken end must be undertaken. Capt.
Squires who has the work in charge is an
expert of long experience In cable work.