ROUTE SELECTION AND CABLE LAYING 301 



was clear of danger and there was ample room to land two cables with 

 a separation on the shore of some 30 yards. 



Port Lathaich is only about 3 miles by road from Oban. Additional 

 land cables would be necessary, however, to carry traffic to the main 

 trunk network. From a strategic point of view, although Oban might 

 only just be considered a target area, the cable landing was sufficiently 

 remote to be relatively safe, especially if the cable terminal station was 

 sited in the rocky hillside. To ascertain whether any serious chafing or 

 corrosion would result if cables were laid over the une\-en bottom in 

 the Firth, some 8 miles of coaxial cable with E type armoring were laid 

 over the area and recovered after 2 years. There was no evidence of 

 any chafing or corrosion. It was therefore decided that the telephone 

 cables should be routed through the Firth of Lome to the cable terminal 

 station site at Port Lathaich. 



West End — The choice of a suitable cable landing in Newfoundland 

 was more difficult to make, in view of the rugged and sparsely populated 

 nature of the countr3\ From Fig. 3 it will be seen that the existing tele- 

 graph cables spanning the Atlantic land either just north of St. Johns, 

 in Conception Bay, or in Trinity Bay. North of Cape Bonavista the 

 coast becomes more broken, and the sea approach is not good. Accord- 

 ingly, there was no good alternative to routing both telephone cables 

 into Trinity Bay, close to and northwest of the telegraph cable landing 

 at Hearts Content on the southern shore of the bay. A survey party 

 made an extensive examination of all likely places on the western side 

 of the bay from Cape Bonavista in the north to Bull Arm at the southern 

 end where, incidentalh^ the first successful telegraph cable was landed. 

 Careful consideration of all of the places visited led to the agreement 

 that Clarenville was the best site for a landing and for a cable terminal 

 station. 



Clarenville is at the head of the Northwest Arm of Random Sound. 

 It is a junction on the main railway, and a good road to St. Johns will 

 pass through the town in traversing its course from St. Johns to Port 

 aux Bascjues. Clarenville has a growing population of some 1,600 inhabi- 

 tants, with stores and repair facilities of various sorts. Good cable land- 

 ing sites are available just out of town and the approach from the sea 

 up the Northwest Arm presents no navigational difficulties. Such few 

 small vessels as ply to Clarenville during the summer months are not 

 likel}' to interfere with the cables. 



Final Route Agreement 



Having agreed Clarenville, Newfoundland, and Oban (Port Lathaich), 

 Scotland, for shore terminations, it was possible to complete the routes 



