November i, 1907.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



39 



Cable Steamer "Citta ui Mllano."' 



View in Pikelli & Co.'s Milan Works — Manufacture of Armored Electric Cables. 



enterprising house ordered a 

 cable ship, the Citia di Milaiio. 

 built in England, which the- 

 government admitted into the 

 royal navy. Before either their 

 ship or the San Bartolomco 

 branch was built, Pirelli ,& 

 Co. received their first order, 

 at the beginning of 1887, to 

 connect Massawa and Assab 

 with the British cable system 

 at Perim, in the straits of Bab 

 el Mandeb. They bought the 

 cable for this in England, and 

 engaged an English ship to lay 

 it; but since that time they 

 have been in all respects inde- 

 pendent of otiier countries, and 

 have laid thousands of miles of 

 cables for the Italian and Spanish 

 governments, and have taken over 

 the maintenance of many other lines 

 laid by England. Their Spanish 

 branch, founded in Ipoi, at Villa- 

 nueva y Geltru, near Barcelona, has 

 grown rapidly, until it is now about 

 one-third the size of the Milan plant. 

 This branch has specialized in insu- 

 lated wire and cables, and besides 

 perfect equipment, has embodied all 

 the best hygienic and safety ap- 

 pliances. 



Pirelli & Co. have a monopoly of 

 all the postoffice, telegraph, tele- 

 phone and railway wiring in Italy, 

 and have done most of the electrical 

 insulation work for the various mu- 

 nicipalities. About one-third of their 

 total business is supplying foreign 

 demands. One of their most bril- 

 liant achievements in this line was 

 the conduit work done for the On- 

 tario Power Co., at Niagara Falls, in 

 the United States, to carry the power 

 from the generating to the dis- 

 tributing station. A special type of 

 5-inch cable was required for this 



current "of l2,6od volt tension. How- 

 ever, they have since made cables, 

 insulated with sheet rubber, which 

 have stood a tension of 150,000 volts. 

 -\nother interesting bit of work was 

 the laying of a power cable over a 

 pass in the Andes mountains, where 

 they climbed 8,000 feet. 



Cable laying is ever spectacular, 

 .ind the romantic Latins love to 

 dwell on this feature of their busi- 

 ness; but as a matter of fact this is 

 not the most important branch of 

 Pirelli & Co.'s business. There is 

 probably no article of rubber, gutta- 

 jjercha, asbestos, or balata which they 

 do not make. They have never gone 

 in extensively for footwear, because 

 the happy southerners do not need 

 rubber shoes ; but they supply large 

 quantities of rubber soles for ath- 

 letic shoes, or for the foreign 

 trade. They have always been 

 strong in rubber compounding, 

 in making rubber and gutta- 

 percha solutions, and in taking 

 up new grades of crude rub- 

 ber. They are always glad to 

 analyze and value such sam- 

 ples of rubber sent in by co- 

 lonial explorers. Seeking ever 

 to develop Italian resources, 

 they obtained a quantity of 

 rubber grown in Sicily at the 

 Palermo Experiment Station, 

 and from this made an in- 

 teresting line of hard and soft 

 rubber goods, which they ex- 

 hibited at the Milan Exhibition 



\Vi)KKi.\(i FuKCE OF Pirelli & Co., at Milan. 



