CABLE-LAYING TROUBLES.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1751, 16 May 1913, Page 6

CABLE-LAYING TROUBLES.

SULPHUR SPRINGS IN THE STRAIT. Bad weather in Cook Strait is delaying the cable-mending. Whenever there is a heavy sea in the strait (such as has been experienced of late) it is practically impossible to do any work, and tho only tiling is to run out from port when there is a chance to pick up tlio broken ends anil splice them together. Some light was cast yesterday on the nature of tho work of repairing broken cables at sea by Mr. .T. Orehistou, Chief Telegraph Engineer, who gave the strait a bad name, fur the prosecution of such work. One drawback encounlered (when there happened to be more than a single cable to be dealt with) was the chance of picking up the wrong cable, and, in lifting it, causing it In'break. That had been <lone before, and extra care had to be taken in the grappling work on that account, whenever there was a break in either of the two cables which landed in Lyall Hay, and the three which landed at Olcratigi (to tho north of Cape Terawhiti). Mr. Orchiston staled that the oldest Cook' Strait cable doing duly to-dny was that bptweeu Wangauu! and AVakapuaka. It was laid in 1880. This cable had only keen broken twice—once owing to a manufacturer's Haw, and once ou account of a "kink", made during tlio laying operations. j There luid been a good deal more I rouble with those cables which, crossed the strait in its narrowest part, not only from the chafing caused by tidal influences, but by tho presence of sulphur springs in the bed of tho strait. The action of I hose springs corresponded witli that of an acid baHi. and there had been ca-rs where cables had been raised showing the copper wires eaten through, and in some instances fho action of I lie Hilplmr had reduced them to the thinness of collom llll'ond. There was litlle doubt dial 'lie-? springs followed a well-known "fault, which did not extend as far out as the "Jar'' of the Waacaniu-Wakapuaka cable.