TELEGRAPH WIRES IN GERMANY.

Auckland Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2403, 1 December 1877, Page 7

TELEGRAPH WIRES IN GERMANY.

GERMANY is introducinng a resolution in the fixing of telegraph wires, which she i about to place in the earth, instead of rais-s ing them aloft on poles as has hitherto been done. A subterranean telegraph wire has been in use for twelve, months between Berlin and Halle. During the whole period, the working of the line has been highly satisfactory. The conductibility of the buried wire, • instead of decreasing, has, on the contrary, somewhat increased, and no fault in the insulation has made itself apparent. The cable is composed of seven thin copper wires, twisted together so as to form a single conductor for the electric fluid, and encased in indiarubber. The other similar lines which are to be laid down, and some of which are already begun, run from Berlin to Cologne, to Frankfort, to Strasburg, to Hamburg and Kiel, to Breslau, and to Koenigsbeig ; eachof these points having its own wire to the capital, which is thus placed in direct communication with each of them. An ingenious steam-machine has been constructed, which excavates the trench in which the wire is buried, places the wire in its position, and fills up the excavation ; ihe ditch which is thus dug and refilled by the locomotive boiiicr one metre deep and half a metre wide. Apart from the military advantage derivable from the substitution of these underground wires for the ordinary overhead lines, it is believed that, in the long run, the former will prove more economical tnan the latter. The first cost of laying them down is somewhat greater : but the enormous number oi posts and insulators required for the ordinary lines are dispensed witn, and the heavy loss of replacing these alter every heavy snow-storm, is also avoided.