THE TELEPHONE SERVICE AT KANSAS CITY. 365 
The month included in this record has been warm and dry compared with 
the two preceding months. There was no rain during the first two decades, and 
the slight rains, from September 14th to i6th, ushered in a change, so that on 
the 17th slight frost was reported in low lands near Topeka. This is the only- 
frost so far this season and it did no damage. 
The wind-travel has been less than usual, the most noticeable being that of 
September 20th which came from the north and was so marked a disturbance as 
to have attracted general attention through the country. This cold wave would 
doubtless have brought the frost predicted by the Signal Service had it not brought 
instead a cold rain. 
PHYSICS. 
THE TELEPHONE SERVICE AT KANSAS CITY. 
The telephone service of Kansas City is about to enter upon a new and 
greatly changed era. Those vexatious delays and uncertain connections, which 
have caused many righteous men to desire, and often attain, profane heights 
where their feelings could be vented consistent with the telephonic demands on 
them, bid fair to soon become features of the past. As has been the case with 
other cities we have outgrown the telephonic system, so called, that was con- 
structed when this electrical wonder was in its infancy — and its use and abuse 
unknown, and for eight months past have been experiencing the discomforts of 
what, in telephone parlance, is known as "reconstruction" — constructing anew 
the entire telephonic system of the city. The most difficult part of the outside 
work was that of setting larger and stronger poles in place and transferring to 
them the multitudinous wires that loaded, beyond their capacity, the unsightly 
poles that have been a feature of our streets since the advent of the telephone. 
The new cedars and chestnuts as a rule are straight and clean, and when painted, 
as they are to be, will be a decided improvement in appearance as well as ef- 
ficiency. For a distance of a block, and sometimes two, from the new operating 
room at the corner of Sixth and Delaware Streets fifty-wire cables have been 
strung, doing away with the necessity of that multiplicity of wires at the "central 
office," where so much of the line "trouble" has had its origin in the past. 
This is a new and quite expensive departure in telephonic circles and, if as suc- 
cessful as the cable inventors predict, will greatly aid in solving the aerial wire 
problem. Each wire is insulated and maintains its individuality from cable-box to 
operating-room. On each pole, where a cable terminates, a cable-box is secured 
and here the cable is ' ' stripped," each wire carried to a screw and burr over a light- 
ning arrestor, and out to its proper pin by means of kerite wire, and then con- 
nected with the subscriber's line, constructed of No. 14 steel wire. The light- 
