NEW YORK-CHICAGO CABLE 61 



the most general way in the space available. However, before going 

 ahead with the discussion, I would like to point out that this project 

 is not unlike many others in that, as a whole and in the component 

 parts, there have been required, first, the careful consideration and 

 decisions of the executives, then the underlying work of many scien- 

 tists, inventors and engineers, then the skilled work of the manu- 

 facturers and construction forces, and finally the maintenance and 

 operation by trained people who are responsible for the continuous 

 service so vitally necessary to the industrial and social structure of 

 the country. The point to be emphasized here is that the coordina- 

 tion of all of these factors and the close cooperation of all of the many 

 hundreds of people concerned are the important things. 



General Cable Plans and Routes 



Fig. 1 is an outline map of a section of the United States and shows 

 the routes of existing and proposed long telephone cables of the Bell 

 system. It will be noted that the present and proposed routes follow 

 in a general way the routes of trunk-line railroads. This general 

 section contains m.ore than 50 per cent of the entire population of 

 the United States but less than 15 per cent of the area, and the in- 

 dustrial and telephone development is, of course, very great. Fur- 

 thermore, the nearby surrounding states, supplying as they do large 

 quantities of food products and raw materials, are commercially 

 related to this section in a very peculiar way and this fact greatly 

 influences the long-distance telephone development along the par- 

 ticular cable routes indicated. The routes through the State of 

 Pennsylvania and the offices at Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, which are 

 the terminals of the cable that is more particularly the subject of 

 this discussion, occupy strategic positions in this system. 



Circuits of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company and 

 the Bell Telephone Company of Pennsylvania are carried over these 

 routes and this cable was jointly planned and installed by these 

 companies. 



Fig. 2 is an outline map of the State of Pennsylvania and shows 

 the situation in this section a little more in detail. On this map are 

 shown some of the larger cities and routes of the longer and more 

 important toll and long-distance telephone lines. As indicated, 

 these lines are mainly of the familiar aerial wire type which has been 

 generally used in the past for this purpose and which is today the 

 most efficient and economical type of construction for many cases. 

 In the general section between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh the 



