MAKING AND LAVING SUBMARINE CABLES. 177 
and a half turns round it, just above the tail. Sharks and 
other fishes had partially devoured the carcass, which was so 
rapidly decomposing that the jaw dropped off on reaching the 
surface of the water. The tail, which was in good preservation, 
was 12 feet wide, and was covered at its extremities by many 
shell-fish. The whale had apparently endeavoured to make 
use of the cable to get rid, by rubbing against it, of these 
parasites, by which the cetaceans are always pestered. As the 
cable hung in a long bight, the animal was able not only to 
break it by a stroke of its tail, but to cause it to wind several 
times round its body. 5 ’ 
There is plainly no safeguard against accidents of so extra¬ 
ordinary a nature, but this one in the Persian Gulf shows once 
again how important it is to avoid, by a complete examination 
of the submarine profile, abrupt elevations of the sea-bottom 
near the shores. 
Accidental Mechanical Causes. —Anchors and Fishing- 
tackle ,.—It is always easy to avoid anchoring grounds in the 
shore course of cables, and it is but rarely that the cables are 
lifted by ships’ anchors. Captains usually know what to do in 
such cases, and let down again cables thus brought to the sur¬ 
face. The cables in the English Channel are particularly liable 
to damage from anchors. It frequently happens that in heavy 
weather ships drag their anchors in order not to be cast upon 
the shore. If they are in the neighbourhood of cables, of 
which there are many in the Channel, it will be understood that 
there is much risk. On the memorable night of the 2nd 
January, 1856, when the steamship La Violette was wrecked on 
the Goodwin Sands, and when so many other vessels were 
completely lost, a sailing ship, dragging her anchors, caught 
successively the Dover and Ostend and the Dover and Calais 
cables, and thus destroyed in one night the only two lines of 
communication then existing between England and the 
continent. 
Fishing-tackle, especially that of coral-fishers, is a serious 
danger for light cables. Coral-fishing is carried on to depths 
of 200 yards. Below this depth the cables usually laid are 
what are called deep-sea cables, and are of small diameter. 
The coral boats are always provided with powerful capstans 
or winches, and their nets or drags may entangle a cable and 
