THE ROMANCE OF TELEGRAPHY.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1716, 5 April 1913, Page 2

THE ROMANCE OF TELEGRAPHY.

AMAZING STORY OF RAPID COMMUNICATION.

An interesting account of the triumphs of modern telegraphy is -given in tho "Financial Times" by Air. Clifford lliggins, 13, Sc. "During no period, aiiice its first inception, has the art of submarino telegraphy advanced so greatly as during tho past twenty-five years," he says; "its achievements, however, to the great lay world pass unnoticed and unhonoured, simply because they are nnproelaimed. "Yet aeliievemcnts thero have been, and of no mean order; tho mileage has increased greatly, and cables havo been laid in difficult places, where the great deptli of tho ocean has required that, not only should a cartful survey precede the construction of the cable, but also that every refinement of tho cable-laying apparatus should bo at tho disposal- of tho expedition, engaged in tho work of sub--merging the cablv. "Tho working of cables has -been, tho subject of the application of much inventive genius; an enormous advance was m-ado when-automatic working was introduced in place of manual working, resulting: in grcotly enhanced speed ot\ sending messages. "To what a great extent the mileage has been increased is well shown .in tho following table, namely— : Year. Mileage. 1887 • • 107,000 185)7 100,000 ' ' 1912 268,000 Out' -of this 208,000 miles no than 100,000 miles are British owned; "neatly tho whole mileage is of British manufacture; indeed, it is only during tho past few years that tho manufacture of submarine cables lias fen carried on elsewhere than on tho banks of the Thames. Victory for- Private Enterprise. "Private enterprise has been responsible for more than four-fifths of tho remarkable oxpahsion in the past 25 years, and it is not too much to boast that it is only due to British pluck and perseverance that those great initial difficulties were overcome, and tho vast network of inter-communication spread over the five oceans; tho money sunk in those first great ocean cables camo exclusively from Great Britain, and although attempts were nmdo to, raiso an interest in the undertaking in tha States, yet tho interest so stimulated proved to bo of an academical, and not a financial, nature. "In the course of the last five-and-twenty years'the inception and growth of practical wireless telegraphy havo taken place. It is an undisputed fafct that the strategical importance of a wireless telegraph' system is superior to that of a cable system. Amazing Everyday Routine. "Tlrt great achievements of modern telegraphy are all in the direction of communication over very long distances without intermediate retransmissions, which, of course, involve tho rehandling of telegrams, with attendant delays and errors. What is claimed as a -world's re> cord in this direction stands to the credit, of the 'Indo' system of overland telegraphs. Tho system of the Indo-Euro-peau Telegraph Company places London and-the Continent of Europe in direct communication, as defined above, not only with' South Russia (1900 miles), but (via Black Sea Cable) with Constantinople (2200 miles), for European and Asiatic Turkey, with Teheran (4000 miles) for Persia, and in conjunction with tho system 'of the Indo-European (Government) Telegraph Department with Karachi (5900 miles and a world's record) for India, anil thence by connection with the great cablo systems for the Far East; "This,* bo it said at oiice, is not fancy working—that is, working that may occasionally be. attained under exceptionally favourable circumstances—but sober, cvery-day routine working, and recognised as such by the great numbers of the commercial community using the system. How a Mcssano Travels,' TA. telegram dispatched from the United Kingdom for any of tho countries just mentioued first passes over one of the company's private land wires to Lowestoft, from whence it is flashed by means of either tho Norderney or Borkum (Government) cablos, to Kmden, on tho .Western German Coast. From this point tho wires aro leased by tho company from the German Government until t the-Russian frontier is reached, where they, connect up with tho liido-Europcan Company's private line as far as Teheran in; Persia, the remaining portion''of tho system being completed by the IndoLuropeaii (Government) Telegraph Department, and the whole lino finally ending at • Karachi on the north-west coast of Lidia. Strange Places for Telegraphs. "To truce tho system in detail, wo find that after leaving tho German frontier somewhere between Posen and Breslau, tho lino passes through Warsaw and Rowno to Odessa on tho Black Sea, from whenco it is traced across tho Crimea to tho Straits ICertch. These are negotiated by means of three short subiiiarino cables, and skirting tho neighbourhood of. Anapnl and Novorossisk, the system runs on to Tiflis in Caucasia. At tliis stage tho wires puss, through extremely wild and mountainous country, which, with the denso and.sometimes'almost, impenetrable forests -which aro encountered in this region, must havo caused considerable' difficulties ;to tho pioneers of tho Indo-European enterprise. Theso conditions continue with; more or" less regularity until Djoulfn is reached, on tho llusso-Pcrsian frontier, when they give way to the vast expanso of Persian desert surrounding- Tabriz, which constitutes the last relay station on the System, Teheran, tho present Persian capital, forming the terminal station of the company's line. Wonderful Automatic Messages, "A cablo relay has been applied to an American cablo between New York and Buenos Ayres. This cablo comprises six sections of submarino cablo with ono land line. Hitherto it has been the practice to receive tho messages .at the end of each section and then to re-transmit them by hand to tho end of tho next section —a process involving a delay of 20 minutes from New York to Buenos Ayres. "The installation of tho automatic relay at tho ends of tho various ■ sections, where-hitherto it was taccssary to receive tho messages and retransmit them, has resulted in tho messages being sent Uirnngh these stations without tho intervention of human assistance. Message.; aro now transmitted to a point in the centre of the system, <uid theneo manually re-transmitted to Buenos Ayres; this improved process results in the necessity for human interference only once during the • postage from New York to Buenos Ayres, instead of six times as heretofore, and lias diminished the delay involved to only three minutes, and. reduced the possibility of error. This is merely an instance of tho manner in which modem advancement has caused tho acceleration and cheapening of overseas telegraphy. Cabling by Sound ( \ A further triumph for telegraphy, for direct communication by -sound between London and 'San Francisco lias now been established bv means of linked cable and land telegraph lines. It is claimed, says the "Telegraph," that this now system, the invention of Jlr. John Gott, chie) engineer to tho Commercial Cablo Company, ends the long search by experts, including Jlr. T. A. Edison, for an appliance to carrv the Morse dots and dashes for several thousand miles, and eliminate the orevniling method of receiving messages in tho tracing of a pen on a strip . of paper.