Evening star., 1921-02-27
CABLES NOW CARRYING VOICES
FROM AMERICA TO ANTILLES

Though the laying Of three black,
prosaic-looking cables under the hum
dred miles of sea water that separate
Key West from Havana has little of
romance in it to the casual observer,
1t represents an important step in
mans conquest of space and time. +"
says bulletin issued from the WASH
ington headquarters of the National
Geographic Society.
These cables'wi for the first time
carry the voices Of mainland America
to the Queen Of the Antilles and
Dr1ng back answering voices, and at
the same time they will be carving
the sound of spoken words for a
greater distance under water than
they have ever been carried before.
1t is the latest chapter in the far
from finished story of mans strug-
gle to fling his thoughts-anl even
the 1ntonationS that mea sure his feel
ings-to his fellows at the ends of
the earth
Progress in spanning the salt
water that divides the world into
what were once 'idea-tight' compart-
ments-and which now know the gos-
SIP OF each others market places.
forums and boudoirs as soon as
IL Is known at home-started in
earnest only three-quarters of a CEN
tury ago. after Samuel F. B. Morse
proved with the telegraph that dis
tanceS over land were slight barriers
to exchanging signals. 1t is perhaps
little known that Morse also was one
OF the first to experiment with under
water signaling. After successfully
under part Of New York harbor, from
Castle Garden (now the New York
city aquarium) to Governors island.
he gave 1t as his opinion that signal
ing over properly built cable be-
tween europe and America should be
possible.
First Atlantic Cable Failure.
The first efforts to realize Morse's
prediction, in the late forties, were
failures. Because neither cable-mak-
ing nor cable-laying had been master
ed, the cable broke again and again.
and the broken end was finally aba :
doned in midatlantic. The first com
mercially successful submarine cable
was laid as the result Of the much less
ambitious desire to connect England
and France. This cable, about twenty-
FIVE miles long, was laid under the
Straits of Dover in 1851. Then came
other short cables: Italy to Corsica
and Sardinia, Sardinia to Africa, Scot
land to Ireland. and a length in the
Black sea.
I'm 1857 Europe and America were
first connected by cable and messages
were exchanged for several months.
But the insulation Of the cable was
destroyed by currents of too great
strength and the two continents were
again without electric communication
for nearly ten years. An attempt to
connect Europe with India through the
Red sea was the next ambitious cable
project. but it, too. was failure. The
first successful long cable. chiefly use
ful for commercial purposes, was laid
fttingly enough. in the waters of the
Mediterranean. where commercial ma
tionS first sprang up. 1t extended
from Malta to Alexandria and was
opened in 1861.
No Cable News Of Civil War.
Europe remained without cable
news from the United States during
the civil war. but in 1866 the Atlantic
was finally electrically bridged, and
the connections between the old and
the new worlds has since been con-
tinuous. In 1869 a cable was laid
from France to the United States.
British Isles. and later direct con-
nection was established between Ger
many and America. BY the beginning
of the world war thirteen transat-
lantic cables were in operation be-
tween Europe and the United States.
Once the north Atlantic was bound
by the great metal strands, these far
reaching tentacles of mans inteIli-
gence began to stretch out under the
waters of all the earth's oceans. The
British Isles were tied to the con-
tinent by numerous cables reach
ing to France. Belgium and Holland.
The Scandinavian countries were con-
nected with each other and Germany.
Portugal laid a cable to Brazil, and
after this pioneer others followed
at various points across the south
Atlantic. A line through the Mediter-
ranean and the Red sea connected
England with India. Australia, the
East Indies and China. Another
doubled Africa and reached the same
objectives.
Finally in 1902 the greatest of
cable-laying projects was undertaken
the crossing of the Pacific. The
first Pacific line was laid by a Brit
ish company from Vancouver, British
Columbia, to Australia, a distance
of 1900 miles.
"Neeessary Raw Materlal.''
THE Pacific. with it's vast distances,
illustrates admirably the cable-cre-
ated need for the ownership of small
Islands, for which. during tho latter
part Of the last century. there was
much competition. little understood