FASTER TRAFFIC.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18233, 18 November 1924, Page 2

FASTER TRAFFIC.

ON TRANS PACIFIC CABLE.

SMART WORK BY THE IRIS. Even in under-sea cables there are changes in fashion, but fortunately for the cable men Und the business men they do not change so often as those in some other things that are used in this world. For twenty-two years the cable that runs northward from Fiji and connects us with our kin across the other side of the Pacific, and thence on to the heart of the Empire, has lain buried in de-op-sea ooze, carrying on its thin copper thread the messages that have varied in import from the thrilling call to war down to the latest price of onions or any other of the unpoetic commodities that business people talk about. But those restless souls, the experts, are never satisfied; they are not satisfied with a cable that works one way only, they feed it at both ends, and even then are not satisfied, they invent mechanism which eliminates the human being who, in the old days, used to sit tapping out his "dot. dash." The result is that today thev are able to send words over the ocean at a rate that to the layman seems ridiculous, and those that receive messages will observe that they now land here all ready printed. This cable 'business is one of the man-els of modern science, and while such things be, no man dare to say that romance is dead. In spite of the fact that wireless threatens to play up with the cable business, just as the motor buses are ca'ising the custodians of the citv trams to think, the under-sea cable people arc convinced that the day is yet far distant when they will be pushed out of business. In spite of the fact that signals can be flashed round the world in both directions in a matter of a few seconds, the slow but sure cable simply takes a fresh grip of the bottom of the ocean and beeps steadilv at work, throbbing with dots and dashes that by the end of the year mean many thousands of pounds to the Pacific. Cable Board, and keens us within a few minutes of London.

A "World Record. From Fanning Island to Vancouver runs the longest btretch of, deep-sea cab'e in the world, over 2000 knots of it. and at present that is single. Down at the southern end of this important "j\ll Red" cable duplications have l>een carried out, so there is little fear of a complete interruption as far ns New Zealand, Fiii, and Australia are concerned, but that long thin link that crosses the Northern Pacific is really the ju<rular vein of ihe system, and tho Pacific Cable Board mil soon starting on the important work of duplication. This would have been done before, only the Board was waiting for the result of certain experiiripntß that were being made in the Atlantic with what is called cable. In the ordinary cable the copper wire, which is the life thread of the affair, is covered with gutta-percha insulation, but it has been found that by wrapping the copper wire with a sort of armour of certain metals its capacity for carrying the signals is greatly improved. But at last the Board has satisfied itself of the success of tho new cable, and within two years this unique stretch of cable will be dupli-l cated.

Grappling in 400 Fathoms. In tho meantime it was decided that by renewing the shore-end of the cable at Suva, Fiji, with a new cable, certain interruptions that occur at all shore ends would be eliminated, and the capacity of. the cable increased ,by something like 20 per cent. Fifteen miles of this cable arrived in Auckland recently, by the Tiirakina, and a fortnight ago the Pacific Cable Board's cable steamer Iris (Gaptain H. It. Hughes), with this cable on board, left her moorings at Devonport and went north to do the job of replacement. She got back on Friday morning after a particularly smart piece of work. Favoured by splendid weather, she carried out the work in very smart time, and the working of the cable was interrupted for only eight hours while the new end was spliced on to the old cable. Groping for a thin cable something less than an inch thick at the muddy bottom of the Pacific Ocean, in 400 fathoms—nearly three times the height of Bangitoto—seems something more difficult than trying to pick the winner of the New Zealand Cup, but the Iris struck it first shot. At shore-ends of cables the cable people are troubled with disturbances that may .be likened to the . sort of thing we used to have i® Auckland after the advent of the electric trams and before the telephone service had been modified to meet the new state of affairs. To overcome these shore-end troubles it was necessary to put in a fair length stretch of treble core cable, which consists of three, coppers, two of which are what are known as ."sea earths," which cut out enough of the disturbances to enable .the. signals to come through much better, and the net rosult is that the capacity of the cable is increased by about twenty per cent.

Splicing On. When the Iris arrived at Suva she buoyed one end of the cable, floated it ashore on barrels and left the end in the Suva Office. There are a lot of coral patches, and the reef to be negotiated off shore, and after the cable had been carefully laid through these obstructions the Iris steamed off and laid just under ten miles of the new cable, the end of which she buoyed in 350 fathoms. All this time, of course, the old cable had not been touched, and was still fully working. Then began the task of finding the old cable. Steaming across with grapnel out in 400 fathoms, the Iris had the satisfaction of picking up what she was after at the very first shot. Then began the delicate work of splicing on the new cable to the old, the latter of course having to be cut. Although it was laid twenty-two years ago the old cable was found to be as good as the day it left the cable tanks, every part of it being in perfect condition. The work of splicing on was smartly carried out, and the whole timo the working of the cable was interrupted was eight hours. Oddly enough, just after the ship had finished the task heavy rain set in, and if it had fallen earlier .this would have greatly increased the time during which the cable was out of commission.—Auckland "Star."

The idea that each ninth wave is much bigger than those that follow or precede it (writes an English correspondent) still survives among some of our inshore fishermen. It seems to be a myth, none the less. . Recently, on a quiet day after a gale had been blowing for many house, I spent a morning making a statistical record of groups of 50 successive waves. In those groups wares that, were appreciably bigger than the average (as measured by a graduated pole stuck in the sand) occurred at irregular intervals. In the first 50, the biggest one's were the 7th, 19th, 31s£, and. 46th, the last being a monster which turned over in a perfect green curve with an unusually metallic clang. A second 50 contained two big Waves (NO3 27. and 33), both of which could be seen a long way out at sea, but seemed to dissolve in a white confusion before arriving at the beach. Other fifties had no unusually big example, but a sixth furnished another clangorous monster (No. 19).