The Mountain-High Telephone

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22305, 20 January 1938, Page 4 (Supplement)

The Mountain-High Telephone

Across the Andes between Ar-> gentina and Chile, where once Inca tribesmen struggled against snow and avalanches and bitter cold, there is now a railway, a motor road, and a telephone. It may sound a natural thing to have a telephone linking two countries. But until six or seven years ago men thought it impossible, to find a telephone that would stand against the avalanches of the steep, cold, and unfriendly mountains of the Andes. In 1930, American and Chilean engineers set out to carry a • telephone through this difficult region; and to make the telephone cable safe they dug and blasted a continuous ditch to bury it deep for mile after mile of valley and mountain pass and arid rock slopes. The line goes over the land on and on, anid then under the sea to link Uruguay with Argentina and Chile, and then with the North American States and with Europe.

Near the tiny hamlet, of Las i Cuevas, on the Argentine side of the Andes the line reaches a point of 12,300 ft above sea level. By contrast, the submarine telegraph cable off the coast of Chile rests on sea bottom in 21,000 ft of water. Dangerous and difficult though these lonely Andean passes are, stubborn man has long used them in his restless transit across South America. Toiling on foot or shouting and stoning their lazy llama pack trains, native races of long ago travelled the worn trails that parallel the winding Aconcagua River, up ever narrowing canyons, under cliffs, and along the edge of dizzy precipices.

In the glittering days of Spanish viceroys, when the King of Spain ruled much of South America through his agents at Santiago de Chile, pack trains and soldiers used these same Andean trails to reach

Tucuman, Cordoba, and ancient Cuyo country. For much of its length the cable parallels the well-known “rack” railroad crossing the Andes. Winding ever upwards the road runs in the shadow of Mount Tupungato, 21,550 ft high, and past an odd rock formation known as “The Penitents,” from its resemblance to a procession of cowled monks. Then comes Puente del Inca, a strangely formed natural bridge which gives the district its name. Just beyond this bridge, if the day is clear, the great Aconcagua, highest mountain in the Americas, whose snow-capped peak rubs the sky 23,080 ft above the sea is visible. At Las Cuevas the westbound train crawls into the mountain side from Argentina to emerge on Chilean soil. Over the hill through which this two mile tunnel runs is laid the telephone cable: and, if the

day is clear, just as the , train emerges in Chilean sunshine the passenger can look up at the hilltop and behold that famous peace monument, the Christ of the Andes, which stands more than 12,000 ft above sea level, on the Chile-Ar-gentina frontier. Far below, though still at 9000 ft elevation, Inca Lake is set among the peaks. JTo save their cable from the many avalanches the telephone engineers buried it in the rocks all the way from Las Cuevas, oh the Argentine side, over to Juncal, in Chile.

“When we picked out the route for laying our cable over the Andes, it was not with the view of keeping close to roads and trails,” said an official of the American-owned telephone and telegraph company. “What we sought was a path that would give the cable the most shelter said minimise the danger of

breaks from avalanches, landslides, or earthquakes.

“But always we had to carry tha heavy cable on the last lap ol its

hard journey up steep mountains and over cliffs, to where we had blasted a sunken way for it. Only picked men could stand this tremendous physical ordeal. We chose only those who had worked for years in high altitudes. Even the blasting and digging of our cable’s underground path over this roof of the world, a ditch many miles long, was a back-breaking task.” Now over thousands of miles of sea, jungle, plains, and Andean snows a long-distance dialogue can be held as easily as if the speakers were face to face. What a contrast since doughty old Tupac Yupanqui, the Inca warrior, braved these Andean passes! Probably it often took him weeks to get his runners through. Now, when the passes are free of dangerous storm cloud and fogs, aeroplanes fly every week between Santiago (on the Chilean side of the Andes) and Mendoza (on the Argentine side), A highway more or .less parallel with the railway has been blazed across the Andes, and automobiles can make the trip, barring snow, washouts, and landslides. If they break down now, they can telephone for help.

THE ESKIMO

(By R. N. Acton-Adams, 12 years)

The Eskimo comes from the tfole, He suffers and freezes there. He lives in an igloo, poor old soul, And hunts the polar bear.

He chases walruses with a harpoon. He can tell a shark by its fin, He finds the whale a wonderful boon, Its blubber warms his skin.

He hunts in a boat called a kayak; In which he can rol l clean over, To do which there is a bit of a knack, Which is known by this sea rover.

He lives where terrors and perils abound, Among the icebergs groaning. Where many whales are to be found, Which set the deep sea moanmg.

The Eskimo is a patient chap, He sits by an ice hole all day Waiting for the expected tap, Which tells that walruses play.

When the walrus comes up for air, He spears, it right through the heart. To land it he needs to exercise ewe, And he carries it home in his cart. .