1 34 Telephone Systems of the Continent of Europe 



used being 900 kilometers. The company's charges are, the time 

 unit being five minutes, 



o to TOO kilometers . . . "19 pennis per kilometer 



100 ,, 200 ,,.... -18 ,, ,, 



Exceeding 200 ,, . . . '17 ,, ,, 



Thus a talk between Helsingfors and Borga, a distance of 59 

 kilometers (36-6 miles), costs 59 x -19 = 11-2 pennis; and one 

 between Helsingfors and Wiborg, 300 kilometers (186*4 miles), 

 300 x '17 = 51 pennis. As ten pennis make one penny, it 

 follows that 36 \ miles can be spoken over for 1-12^., and i86J 

 miles (practically London to Manchester) for 5-1^. This is even 

 slightly cheaper than in Sweden. All the other towns, with the 

 exception of seven of the most northerly ones and Mariehamn in 

 the Aland Islands, have been connected to the capital and to the 

 Interurban Company's lines by other concessionaries, so that 

 Finland is actually covered with an almost perfect network of 

 telephone trunk wires which bring the shores of the Baltic into 

 instantaneous communication with those of Lake Ladoga, and the 

 far-off interior with both. The Finnish trunk lines extend to the 

 Russian frontier and to within a few miles of St. Petersburg, but 

 the establishment of communication with the Russian systems 

 has not yet been permitted. 



Although the trunks are double, the subscribers' wires are 

 single, so that translators must be used when connecting them 

 together. The town wires are usually of 2*2 mm. galvanised steel, 

 as bronze is reported to be too liable to be affected by the forma- 

 tion of frost, which frequently proceeds with great rapidity and 

 adheres to and breaks down the wire by sheer weight. Some 

 bimetallic wire steel coated with copper of i'8 and 2 mm. 

 diameter, is also being tried experimentally. The trunk lines are 

 partly of copper and partly of the same bimetallic wire of 

 2-2 mm. gauge. The insulators have a bolt right through fastened 

 by a nut at the top, like a single shackle bell used as an upright. 

 The standards are built up of angle iron, and closely resemble 

 the Russian fixture shown in figs, nc and no A (Russian 

 section). Fig. 37 is a view of the exchange fixture at Helsingfors. 



The subscribers' instruments are all of the magneto type, the 



