306 Canadian Record of Science. 



Along the British Pacific Cable. 

 Otto Klotz. 



On the 31st day of December, 1900, articles of contract 

 were made by Her Majesty's Government, Canada, New South 

 Wales, Victoria, New Zealand and Queensland on the one 

 part, and the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Com- 

 pany on the other, for the construction and laying of the Pacific 

 Cable. The contract called for the completion of the whole 

 cable on or before 31st December, 1902. The cable was fin- 

 ished two months earlier and after undergoing the required 

 test of a month, entered upon its commercial career on De- 

 cember 8th, 1902. Thus was the project, that had been ad- 

 vocated with persistence from some quarters for a quarter of a 

 century, made an accomplished fact. The missing link of 

 about 8000 miles across the Pacific between Canada and Aus- 

 tralia, in the world's metallic girdle, was now supplied. Before 

 the cable was laid a survey was made of the route and the 

 character of the ocean bed was examined. 



From the survey the number of miles (nautical) of cable 

 required for the different sections was found to be as follows : 

 From Vancouver Island to Fanning Island 3654 



" Fanning Island to Suva, Fiji 2181 



" Suva to Norfolk Island 1019 



" Norfolk to Queensland (Moreton Bay) 906 

 " From Norfolk to New Zealand 513 



The first section of the cable is about a thousand miles 

 longer than any that had been laid before. This necessitated 

 a considerable increase in copper for the conductor and in 

 gutta percha for the dielectric. The working speed of a sub- 

 marine telegraph cable depends on, and is inversely propor- 

 tional to, the product of the total resistance of the conductor 

 multiplied by the total electro-static capacity of the core, so 

 that, other things being equal, the speed varies inversely as the 

 square of the length of the cable. In the long section there 

 were used 600 lbs. of copper and 340 lbs. of gutta percha per 



