MAKING AND LAYING SUBMARINE CABLES. 169 
Gutta-Percha and Telegraph Company: The first operation is 
to connect the ship with the shore by a rope ; to this rope a 
o-inch hawser is fastened, then a 5-inch hawser, which passes 
over blocks firmly fixed on the shore by anchors. The cable is 
attached to this last hawser, which returns from the blocks on 
shore and is hauled in from the ship. 
Shore cables weighing from ten to twenty tons per mile can¬ 
not easily be dragged along the bottom, and therefore they must 
be buoyed up at in¬ 
tervals by barrels or 
inflated India-rub¬ 
ber bags (fig. 109). 
These are placed 
every ten or fifteen 
yards, and support 
the cable by ropes 
passing through two 
upper and two lower 
rings (fig. 110), so 
arranged that when 
the rope is cut at a 
the cable is com¬ 
pletely clear of the 
barrels and falls to 
the bottom. By this 
method, a heavy cable 
can be brought to 
shore even in the 
worst weather, and 
this is a real advan¬ 
tage over the old plan of landing by means of a number of boats. 
When the cable between Chorillos and Mollendo on the 
Western coast of South America was laid, the shore end was 
landed by the traction of a locomotive ; for, instead of leading 
the hawser back to the ship, it was, after passing through the 
block, attached to a locomotive (l, fig. Ill), moving parallel to 
the shore. This was the only possible method, for the bay of 
Mollendo is entirely filled with reefs among which boats could 
not pass. The same plan has been adopted at other places on 
the south-west coast of America, 
