August i, 1902.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER V/ORLD. 



359 



THE UNITED STATES PACIFIC CABLE. 



THE announcement was made on July 19 that the Com- 

 mercial Pacific Cable Co. had signed a contract with the 

 Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Co., Limited (Lon- 

 don), for the manufacture and laying of its cable from Hono- 

 lulu to Manila, touching midway at Guam. The Construction 

 company guarantees to complete the cable by June, 1903, if 

 furnished with the necessary soundings. In the event that 

 these cannot be furnished, the company agrees to finish the 

 cable laying within such time thereafter as may be necessary to 

 take the soundings. 



It is stated that the Commercial Pacific Cable Co. have laid 

 before the government at Washington a proposal that if the 

 soundings in the Pacific ocean taken by the United States boat 

 Nero art thrown open to that company for use in laying their 

 cable, the company will agree to have the entire cable from San 

 Francisco to Manila laid and in operation by June i, 1903, or 

 1% years sooner than the company had at any time before in- 

 dicated that they could put the cable into operation. The 

 government is considered likely to throw open the soundings 

 to the public, including the cable com- 

 pany named, just as it has always 

 thrown open to the public all govern- 

 ment soundings taken along the coast 

 of the United States or elsewhere. 



The placing of this contract would 

 indicate that the Commercial Cable in- 

 terests are not bound up with any par- 

 ticular cable manufacturer. The three 

 transatlantic cables of the Commercial 

 Cable Co. were laid by Siemens Broth- 

 ers & Co., Limited, and the first section 

 of the Pacific cable has been made by 

 the Silvertown company. The Tele- 

 graph Construction and Maintenance 

 Co. were identified with the first suc- 

 cessful Atlantic cable, having been 

 formed, in fact, in April, 1864, at the 

 suggestion of the late Sir John Pender, 

 by the amalgamation of the leading 

 cable makers of that time, to construct 

 a transatlantic cable, since which time 

 they have occupied a position among 



the greatest cable laying companies. The CDmpany have a 

 capital of ;£448, 200 (=$2,241,000) on which amount dividends 

 of 20 per cent, were paid last year, in addition to 4 per cent, on 

 ^150,000 of debentures. 



In connection with the recent debate in Congress on the 

 question of extending government support in the construc- 

 tion of a Pacific cable, a cablegram addressed to the chair- 

 man of a congressional committee was read on June 11, of 

 which the following is a copy : 



Hepburn, Chairman, H^askington : 



My company begs to inform you that it has already manufactured 1065 

 nautical miles of submarine cable which we are to lay between San Fran- 

 cisco and Honolulu for the Commercial Pacific Cable Co., and the bal- 

 ance is being made at the rate of 25 miles per day, and oar steamer 

 Silvirt07vn will sail with said cable on or about the ist August next. 



ROBERT K. GRAY, 



.Managing Director of the India-Rubber, 



Gutta-Percha and Telegraph Works Co. 



DEATH OF JOHN W. MACKAY. 



John William Mackay, of San Francisco and New York, 

 and president of the Commercial Cable Co, and of the Com- 



THE LATE JOHN W. MACKAY 



London, June 11, 1902 



mercial Pacific Cable Co., died in London on July 20. His 

 last illness was of short duration, as earlier in the week he had 

 been engaged with Vice President Ward, of the same compa- 

 nies, in concluding a contract for the completion of the Pacific 

 cable, the announcement of which appeared the day before 

 Mr. Mackay 's death. Mr. Mackay was born in Dublin, Ireland, 

 November 28, 1831, and was broi;ght by his family to New 

 York nine years later. He was a very young man when he 

 found his way to California, where his attention was attracted 

 to mining interests, and he became one of four partners to gain 

 great wealth through the discovery of the " Bonanza" silver 

 mine. Mr. Mackay, by the way, was the last survivor of the 

 group. He became interested in the subject of ocean telegra- 

 phy at a time when all the Atlantic cables were controlled by 

 a monopoly, and in conjunction with Mr. Bennett, of the New 

 York Herald, established the Commercial Cable Co., which 

 company now operates three transatlantic lines besides having 

 a working arrangement with the German-Atlantic cable. The 

 Postal Telegraph Co., with 185,000 miles of land wires in the 

 United Slates, is an allied enterprise. Mr. Mackay was the 

 principal stockholder in the various companies named, and it is 

 presumed that his place in these com- 

 panies will be taken ultimately by his 

 son, Clarence H. Mackay, already a 

 vice president of the Commercial Co. 

 The latter is credited, in a recent news- 

 paper article, with having been the first 

 to suggest the Pacific cable enterprise 

 now under way. The construction of 

 the Pacific cable will be in charge of 

 George Gray Ward, long identified 

 with the Mackay interests, and regard- 

 ed as the leading expert on ocean cable 

 laying now living. 



BRITISH PACIFIC CABLE. 

 The Telegraph Construction and 

 Maintenance Co.'s cable steamer, Colo- 

 nia, sailed from London on July 10 for 

 Vancouver, to lay the longest section 

 of the British Pacific cable, from Brit- 

 ish Columbia to Fanning island, and 

 another steamer was to sail in a few 

 days to lay the section from Fanning 

 island to the Fiji islands. With these two sections the cable 

 will be completed. The date named in the contract for com- 

 pleting the laying of the cable is November i, 1902, 



ANOTHER GERMAN ATLANTIC CABLE, 



The Deutsch-Atlantische Telegraphen-Gesellschaft have 

 contracted for a new cable across the Atlantic, to duplicate the 

 line laid in 1900 from Borkum, Germany, to New York. The 

 total length of this line is 4142 miles, in two sections, uniting 

 at Horta, in the Azores. The company's recent experiments 

 in cabling direct from Borkum to New York have been quite 

 successful, aflfording practically one cable. The year 1901 was 

 the record year in the transatlantic cable business, and the an- 

 nual report of the German cable company for the first year 

 makes a most satisfactory showing. The cable will cost 

 21,000,000 marks ( = $4,998,000) and will be manufactured in 

 Germany. Mr. Franz Cloutli, the Cologne rubber manufacturer, 

 is a director in the company owning and operating the German 

 Atlantic cable, besides being connected with the company 

 which will make the new cable. The government will pay an 

 annual subsidy of 1,710,000 marks (=$406,980) for forty years. 



