The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-01-06
SERVICE As USUAL As CABLES RELA|O
Dredging Of Ship Canal In Raritan Bay Makes Novel
 Undertakjng Necessary

NEW YORK, Jan. s.---when the government began its ten-year proj- ect dredging a new ship canal in Raritan Bay. south of Staten Island. made necessary novel un- by construction forces of the. New York Telephone company. This feat was the digging of fifteen-foot trench 30 feet wide and 1,S00 feet long in the bottom of the bay. where the water Is about 20 feet deep. to provide new home for two big sub extend from Princes Bay, s. l.. to Kesnsburg. N. J., a distance of six miles, and belong to the important ; toll lines that connect the metropolis with the Jersey shore resorts.
 This step was followed by the shift. ing of each of these. great cables into ing accomplished without mishap. The cables are heavily sarmoted with pitch, jute and twisted steel wire and contain 74 pairs of wires in quad formation. which makes possipie more than 90 telephone circuits. In doing this job the telephone men men soows with the precision of naval experts and worked far into the night under the glare of flood lights ip combating the clements and the TS provide adequate water trans portation faculties for the new fac- tories that are being built along Ar thur Kill. which separates Staten Is- land from the Jersey mainland, the government plans to dig new ship channel 1.200 feet wide ad 20 feet deeb, The prAaent mean low-water depth ls 20 feet. The ssapdsucker" dredges biting lort the new channel will have to cross back and forth hundredt 0f times over the telephone cables. In consequence the edict went forth from the government en- gineers to the New Jersey plant headquarters office of the telephone company: Sink your cables out of danger of dredges and below the depth of the new ship channel" While Service W We1t On.
 With no similar experience to serve as . guide, the telephone men set to work under the direction of George R. Sharpless, division con- struction superintendent, of the New all the more difficult by tho fact that on each cable there were. at inter- vals, five-ton loading pots contain ing the delicate Pupin loading coll apparatus used for stepping up the electric current that carries ..Ie NOlCS alOuB the WlTS6s Wo VI IhSoo
 loading pots lay within the length of the cables to be shifted and had to be handled with infinite care.
 The first move was to locate ana mark the respective paths of the two cables across the bay. The cable ship with it's huge grapping hooks picked up "A" cable at one point and marked it with an anitial marker. Then the cable was under-run and maker placed every 200 feet, so that the tops of the spar buoys above water indicated the exact path of the "A" cable This was in an almost straight line.
 o o O
 Digging . New Bed.
 In marking the "B'' cable in the same manner 1t was discovered that 1t had been dragged from its original bed by ships anchors and contained two large bends. At one point the cable had been carried moro than 500 feet eastward.
 The best plan, 1t was found. was to dig the trench between the two cables and haul each from its berth in the clay and shells into, the new trench. For more than month the huge clamshell bucket. suspended