PACIFIC CABLE.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17740, 17 April 1923, Page 10

PACIFIC CABLE.

DUPLICATION OF LINES. SURVEY COMPLETED. (special to "thb fbess.") AUCKLAND, April 16. By the middle of next August the Pacific cable will be duplicated between Auckland and Suva, and between Sydney and Southport (Brisbane), and users will know that in the event of a break on the southern triangle formed by Sydney, Suva, and Auckland, there are now ample alternative routes to jnake it practically certain that tetal interruption in tiie triangle wul be impossible. The caole ship iris returned to her moorings olf De.'onport tnis morning, alter four weeks surveying, etc., in connexion, with the new cable. Leaving Auckland on March 20th, the iris carried out the important work of locating the route over which the duplication will be laid. A depth of 2300 tatnoms, just about two miles and a-half, was the deepest spot the Iris found on tho route. Soundings every twenty-five miles or so were taken on the voyage up. Every time a sounding is taken the ship is stopped, so the work takes some considerable time. At Suva the Iris did some surveying work at the eastern entrance through the reef in Lavcala Bay, through wliich it is intended to lay thd duplication, instead of through the usual steam entrance to the westward. Mr John Miiward, manager of the Pacifio Cable Board, came down from Suva in the Iris. He said the result of the survey was most satisfactory. The bottom was an excellent one for a cable, and the route would be good in every way. ■ The stretches that were b/eing duplicated, said Mr Miiward, were from Sydney to Southport (near Brisbane) 501,1 miles, and from Suva to Auckland direct, 1200 miles. The cost of the work will be £300,000, and both cables should be laid by August 14th next, possibly earlier. The telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company, which secured the contract, is a well-known British company and the cable was manufactured at Greenfinch,

It is interesting to know that the steamer to be used, the Stephen, a vessel of 4635 tons, was formerly the German ship, and was handed over in connexion with the reparation settlement. She is much smaller than the big cable ship Colonia, the 8000 tonner that was used in laying the mam part of the original cablo. The past year was a wonderfully busy one for the Pacifio cable, and when he was asked if the duplication would increase its capacity, Mr Milward said it would not for a moment, as the question of the duplication beyond Suva through Fanning Island to Canada, was in abeyance, but the duplication would ensure an absence from interruption from Fiji downwards. Referring to the wireless experiments the Board was reported to be making, Mr Milward said they hss nothing to do with the question of duplication. While the Board was waiting for the result of the "continuous load cable" it was using the interval to carry on experiments in wireless both in Fiji and Canada. Mr Milward intends to spend about a week in Auckland attending to Board business, at the end of which he will return to Sydney.