Science: Cable

The horse was to have vanished from the face of the earth at the advent of gas machinery. But the automotive industry is at a peak, and there are more U. S. farm horses than ever before. Similarly, it is natural to conclude that wireless communication is superseding cable lines. But, last week, the Western Union Co. manifested the continued vigor of its industry, spurred perhaps by radio competition, by landing the Newfoundland shore-end of a new New York-to-London cable costing about $4,000,000, that will be eight times as fast and efficient as any now joining these two cities. At Bay Roberts, 150 Newfoundlanders bundled on their oilskins and went down the beach through a driving rain to drag in the monstrous sea-serpent of twisted copper, brass, guttapercha and “permalloy” brought in to them by the cable-layer Colonia. The Colonia then plowed off eastward to splice a deep-sea section with the other shore end at Penzance. In August she will lay a final section from Bay Roberts to Manhattan.

The multiplied speed of Western Union’s new cable, 2,500 letters a minute, is to result from an improvement achieved in the cable itself after long experimenting to gain speed by improving sending and receiving instruments. Around the copper conductor of the 3,800-mile strand is wound a continuous strip of “permalloy” ribbon, an alloy of iron and nickel which conducts current very freely, permitting signals to be sent close together.

Cable-laying and tending is a deep sea art. The Colonia is continuously on service, in season and out, finding breaks and mending them. So carefully is each mile of cable charted that little time is lost grappling up the line in two or three miles of ocean. But most breaks occur in shallows. The cable will be scarred or ground in two by icebergs; snagged by fishing trawls; ravaged by boring worms. Once a whale’s corpse was found looped in the line. Once a shark’s tooth was embedded at a break.

On duty, cable ships fly a signal entitling them to the right of way. They need to follow a direct course (if paying out cable) or to stay with lengthy catch (if mending or taking in line). By day the sign is two red canvas globes with a white diamond between them; by night, lanterns hung, vertically, red above, and below, white between.