The morning journal-courier., 1908-02-18
ARE NOT STRAIGHT
Cable Lines in the Sea Laid Like Railroad Tracks on
 the Land.
BEST BOTTOM IS SOUGHT
They Make Many Twists to Avoid Ocean Mountains or Chasms
 Beneath the Water.

The Island of Celebes, nearly half of which is still almost unknown, has now been connected by cable with tho neghborlng Island of Borneo and also with the American Island of Guam, far Co the north It has thus been brought into close touch with the rest of the world, for it is joined to all parts of the Eastern Hemisphere through Guam and San Francisco, says the New York Sun.
 Before an ocean cable is laid yes sel is always sent out to make care full survey of the proposed route. The route is picked for these cable lines just as railroad engineers run lines of levels before they finally locate rail- road routes.
 With piano wire for sounding lines the cable engineer determines the lev els of the ocean floor and secures samples of the bottom so that he may decide where it is best to lay the ca ble. Interesting discoveries were made about the ocean floor between Celebes and Guam, but they mean more to geologlsts than to the laity.
 Gable lines look straight enough as seen on the maps. but they arc any thing but straight as they lie on the i ocean floor. Dr. Klotz of Canada. said in recent lecture that the erea, Pacific cable, 5000 miles long. be- tween Vancouver and New Zealand was time and again defected from a straight line between the island sta tions at which if touched in order tr avoid towering submarine mountains or craters or ground that was hard Q, otherwise undesirable as resting. 1 place for the cable.
 The samples of ground which cable engineers most desire to bring nr l from the bottom are the soft oozes n, muds that are found only in the deer | seas far from the continents snt which are composed largely of in, | pulverized skeletons of marine ami mals. Cables last longest when the, repose in these soft beds They ar, not found everywhere in tho deer ocean. but if they arc not too far ava, the cable route will he defected f, CT Ss them.
 great deal that has been learned about the ocean floor In recent yea i has been incidental to the laying n | cables The United States steamer | Nero was sent to pick a route for ; cable across the Pacific, and whil, i les, n~ix c1,
 depth of S.2sa fathoms, or six miles the greatest depth in the ocean q. which we have knowledge.
 Thousands of miles of cable arc lai, ] at depths of three to four miles helov the surface. and because at sucl depths the pressure of the water | about four tons to the square inch th, cable sinks very slowly to its resting place. The line paid out over tb, stern of the vessel drops instantly on | of sight. hnt the vessel is often twent miles away before the cable finall rests on bottom.
 Al these great depths the water !, very cold The many hundreds a soundings taken during the cable sur vevs have established the fact ths there is very little difference hetwee, the temperatures of the deepest part of the oceans Their waters are uni formly only a few degrees above tn freezing point
 Ii is found also that the bottom n the deep parts of the sea is more fav orable for the longevity of cable line than the harhor ground of the shal lower waters nearer the coasts. Thi
 is fortunate. for II is less expensive f
 haul up and repair cable that need
 to he raised only from comparativel [. rh linu- nainrs.