THE CABLE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 201, 25 August 1937, Page 22

THE CABLE.

(Sent in by Joan Leacli, Torbay.) The core of the cable is made of a number of copper strands wound tightly together on machines. The'.cable is then coated with gutta percha ;and■ tested in! tanks oi brine before it is'-passed for j laying. A layer of jute is. next added 1 to the' gutta percha covering' of the cable to make a bed for the steel armour wires, which have to be strong. Workmen dip the wire in tar. The fin-1 ished cable passes from ,the machine in which it is bound by the armour of I steel wire, from which it is }w,ound into j similar tanks on the cable ships. The i cables are wound into storage" tanks, j which are filled with water to prevent the cable from becoming too Lot or cold.' They are white-washed-to prevent them j sticking together. The ship carries i machinery in the middle of the deck for! winding the cable out of the tanks and j paying it out into the sea as it moves along. After fixing the cable ashore the ship steams away, leaving behind it a long strip of buoys to carry the line out to sea. As the cable is laid the buoys are taken up. At the other side of the ocean the cable is landed, being carried in along a line of barrels. The end of the cable must now be fixed in the cable station, as at the beginning j of the laying operations.