The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1924-05-16
Of new
ALASKA CABLE.
TO BEGIN
Trans-Pacific Line, Much
Larger Than Needed,
Laid for Future.
By STEWART JACKSON,
international News Service.

international News Service.
The laying of the first. 955 miles
OF the new Alaskan deep-sea cable
will be begun May 8, when the
Army Signal Corps cable ship
"Dellwood," leaves Seattle for Ket.
chikan. The Ddllwood arrived in
Seattle April 80 from London, where
the cable was purchased, and she
viii return for another similar
load and lay another lap of the
wire when she has finished the first
one.
Lap by lap, three cable lengths
will be laid along the coast of
Alaska to Seward, where the pres
ent Alaskan cable, laid twenty years
ago and now badly cut up, ends.
From Seward the Dellwood. making
trips back to London when she has
exhausted each 955 miles--for that
is all her draft will safely permit
her to carry-will push the great
steel line Of communications farther
and farther to the north and
west, out past the Aleutian Islands,
until some time in the future the
dream of a century may be realized
AN all-American deep-sea trans
Pacific cable. When that time
comes, say International experts,
this nation will no longer look with
concern upon the little islands Of
Guam and zap, surrounded by
japanese mandate territory, where
the ends of the present American
Commercial Pacific cable lines lie
at the mercy Of any possible enemy.
Kent In Salt Water.
The cable was loaded into tanks
mems Brothers and Company, Wool
witch, England, where it Mas pur.
chased and brought, in the Dell.
to Seattle. The temperature Of the
cable in the salt water tanks had to
be kept the same at all times. and
of the Alaskan waters, so consid.
cradle difficulty in shading and cool.
ing the tanks was encountered in
the tropical regions near the Pan
anna Canal.
The cable is the largest and best
in tho world, steel a:.mored, with
gutta percha core, in which the
communication wires are embedded
extra, arnor It was loaded into
which 1t is to be laid to Alaska
hacks with 1t, the windlass releas-
ing the big wire from the bow of
the vessel. Gutta percha. deep-sea
United States.
Tol1xu1nS t. ~uplRka -
automatic steering device known as
shows instantly the least move
ments Of the ships head and Is
quicker than the steersman's brain
to note the yaw or periodic de-
parture Of the vessel from her
course and to apply the corrective
helm. 1t is a well-known fact in
navigation that human being
cannot steer a straight line on the
ocean, but a curve: and the gyro.
pilot lays a course so much
straighter that. in the case Of the
cable-ship Dellwood. It is expected
by the War Department to save
enough cable at 81 900 a mile to
pay for the device ten times over.
Only U. s. Cable-Ship.
The Dellwood is the only deep.
sea cable-ship flying the American
flag. and she has been on cable
work for years, her crew being
expert layers, splicers. operators
and navigators. This is why sCb-
marine cables. when well made.
often go for years without break
or interruption. The old Alaskan
cable, contrary to this, has for
many years been breaking badly,
and in 1923 alone there were eleven
breaks, keeping the Dellwood EN-.
ployed nearly all Of the time.
The new cable is much larger
than Is needed for army communi-
cations at present, but is being laid
with an eye to the future, when a
transpacific cable, owned by the
United States and lying for the
most part In United States waters,
may exert a powerful influence for
this country in its relation with
the Far East.
Coupled with the startling an.
nouncement by Major General
George C. Squires, former signal
chief officer of the army, last week,
that the army had successfully com.
pleted tests for the combined tele-
graph, cable and radio sending, re.
ceiving and conducting system, and
linking up with the fact that the
Radio Corporation Of America,
headed by the army's former dep.
uty chief of staff, General Har-
bord, is stretching out its myriads
of tentacles all around the globe,
the question of Americas 'isola-
ton" may be regarded purely as a
political one.
improvements Made.
The Signal Corps marvellous in.
vention of the three-way system
has been heralded as ushering in a
new era, In communications. It
makes it possible to send any num-
Der Of messages over the same
wire from Washington or New
York to Seattle or San Francisco,
where they continue automatically
without being relayed on the deep.
sea cable line to it's end. There,
the messages, by automatic ma