350 SUBMARINE CABLE LAYING AND EEPAIRING. 



stored, tested, turned over, examined, made up in good condi- 

 tion and drawn from as required by the cable ships. Tiie 

 Government have two such depots, one at Woolwich and one 

 at Dover ; the Eastern Telegraph Company have cable 

 tanks at Gibraltar, Malta, Suez and Perim; the Eastern and 

 South African Company, tanks at Cape Town and cable 

 hulks at Zanzibar and Mossamedes ; the African Direct 

 Company, at Sierra Leone ; the Great Northern Company, 

 depot and tanks at Woosung; and the Eastern Extension 

 Telegraph Company, at Georgetown (Tasmania), Sydney, 

 Hongkong, and a large central depot at Singapore, where 

 some eleven tanks are fitted, besides boiler house, engine 

 shop, serving shop and stores. The first step in this direc- 

 tion was the utilisation of the hulks of old sailing ships, 

 moored in harbours most centrally situated to the system of 

 cables. 



The tanks on shore are usually built of riveted iron plates, 

 similar to those on ships, and are bedded on blocks of granite 

 or concrete and roofed in by sheds of light angle-iron girders 

 and corrugated iron. In some places it is more convenient to 

 construct shore tanks of concrete, the walls being about 2ft. 61n. 

 thick and 4ft. Sin. above floor level. Fig. 202 represents tank sheds 

 at the Island of Perim, a military station at the Indian end of 

 the Red Sea. Cables were first) landed here in 1884, and the 

 island is now a point of call on one of the Suakim-Aden and 

 one of the Suez- Aden cables, besides having one cable to the 

 Arabian and two to the African coast, making seven in all. 

 The place has rapidly grown and will probably become as 

 important as, if not even more so than, Aden. 



For transferring cable from the ship to the tanks the 

 depots are supplied with suitable steam hauling gear as in 

 Fig. 203. The span being sometimes 100 fathoms or more, 

 and heavy types having to be dealt with, the boiler and engine 

 are usually provided with good margin of power. At Singapore 

 a portable steam gear with boiler complete is mounted on a line 

 of rails between tank bouse and wharf. This is like a port- 

 able steam crane with a wiudmg drum instead of a jib, and 

 has a V sheave for the rope to drive the hauling machines 

 over tanks. 



