The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1906-09-26
Mountain Top Telephony
ReEsabshment of Telephone Service Above the Clouds
Mount Washington.

have business to transact or desire to
| speaking into Il telephone transmitter
thousands of feet in the air. The tour
list who would talk with some one in
the world below has only to enter the
booth. call up central. and. when the
operator has made the desired connec-
tion. drop a coin in the box just as
he might do in IL pay station In a
city store or office building.
While, thanks to the weather men,
Mount Washington was the first of this
worlds famous peaks to be provided
with a telephone. the line builders in
recent years have been busy scaling
mountains. The pioneer who painted
on the canvas cover of his prairie
schooner. Pixies Peak or Bust had
he been travelling in that direction In
these days. might have reported back
by telephone that the explosion had
not taken place because he had reach
ed the goal of his ambition. The tele-
phone on Pixies Peak is used not only
by travellers but by the scientists in
charge OF the Lick observatory and by
the forest wardens who, in case of
fire. would need to summon assistance
rs soon as possible.
Another mountain which has been
scaled by the telephone lines is Mt.
Greylock This eminence has been
made "a state reservation by the com
monwealth of Massachusetts. and
telephone line has recently been con-
structed to its summit. The noun
tain is near the town of Adams, and 1t
is now in telephone connection with
the Bell exchange there. In this case,
the line builders took advantage of an
old land slide which was selected as
the natural route up the height. Here
there was no railroad trestle to which
to attach the wires, so. in a natural
trench made by the land slide, half a
mile of galvanized iron pipe was laid
on the surface of the ground. and Sc
curely anchored to tho ledge at dis
tances OF 100 feet. Rubber insulated
wires were drawn into the pipe and at
the summit line of nine poles was
erected between the end of the pipe
and the house on the mountain top.
The work OF placing the iron pipe up
the land slide was very difficult and
1t was necessary to employ large
force of experienced men on the work.
While Mt. Greylock is not high
peak by comparison with Mount
Washington, the telephone on it's sum-
NIT serves a number of valuable uses.
An employee of the state commission
lives on the mountain for the greater
part OF the year and by means of the
telephone he supplies weather repoIs
to nearby newspapers. 1t is also a
part of his duty to report forest fires,
which he can now do by telephone, in
that way saving great deal of valu-
able time The telephone on Mt. Grey
lock is also used by visitors to call up
their homes or places Of business.
In at least one case during the sum-
mer months. telephones constantly
travel up and down the sides of a
mountain. This is Mount Tom near
Holyoke, Mass, where cars of the
railroad are equipped with telephones
connected by sliding contacts to pair
of wires at the side OF the track. so
that the motorman OIL the two cars
can communicate with each other.
The lines OF the Dell system 10 a
great deal of mountain climbing, even
where there is no necessity OF reach
ing the highest submits. The avenues
Of speed extend through Rocky Noun
tain passes more than 10000 feet above
sea level and in order to place them
there it was necessary to overcome
many difficulties, due to the fact that
the snow sometimes lies to depth of
twenty feet in the winter and that
avalanches and mountain slides sweep
away telephone pole as easily as
any other obstacle. Difficulties hardly
less great than those encountered in
the far west were overcome by the
Bell construction crews during the
work of carrying the toll lines across
tho Cumberland mountains through
the famous gaps which the pioneers
used in migrating from the southern
colonies to the middle west in the
early part of the eighteenth century.