TELEGRAPHING EXTRAORDINARY.

Evening Star, Issue 7472, 16 March 1888, Page 2

TELEGRAPHING EXTRAORDINARY.

A MIDNIGHT TALK ACROSS THE

WORLD. [From the ' Pai.l Mall Budget.']

An altogether unprecendented feat of telegraphy was performed on the night of Sunday, January 22, when a prolonged interview took place by cable between Mr Henry Norman, our special commissioner ai New Westminster, Vancouver, and the editor of the * Pall Mall Gazette,' at the offices of the Commercial Cable Company, 23 Royal Exchange, London. The telegraphing arrangements in London were under the superintendence of Mr G. H. Barnbridge, superintendent of the MackayBennett. Mr Hosmer, manager of the Canadian Pacific Railway Telegraphs, and Mr Ward, manager of the Commercial Cable Company, superintended the interview on the other side. The origin of the interview was the desire of our special commissioner to afford the Old World and the New a striking manifestation of the extent to which time and space have been annihilated by the electric telegraph, and to prove in a more remarkable fashion than has ever been heretofore attempted, the transformation that has been effected in the political conditions of the Imperial problem by the enterprise which has bridged the Dominion from sea to sea, and knit the shores of the Pacific with the banks of the Thames by the electric nerve of modern civilisation. It was accordingly arranged, in ooncert with Mr Hosmer, of the C.P.R. Telegraphs, and Mr Ward, of the Commercial Cable Company, that when our special commissioner reached the other side of the American Continent he should be interviewed by his chief across 7,000 miles of sea and land. The interview, as arranged, took place at the offices of the Commercial Cable Company, 23 Royal Exchange, and lasted for nearly three hours, with interruptions, caused by a storm which raged in the far North-west. The exact distances traversed by the electric current conveying the message are as follows: Miles. By overhead wire from London to WeatonsuperMare.. .. .. ..140 By caile from Weston-super-Mare to Wit rvil'e (Valsntia) .. BS9 By cable from Watervilte (Ireland) to Cinso (Nova Scotia) .. 2,750 By overland from Canto (via New York and Canadian Pacific Railway) to New Westminster (Vancouver) .. .. 4,400 7,619 The cost of constructing a means of electrical communication between the capital of the British Empire and one of the most advanced outposts of the Pacific can he roughly estimated at about L 700.000. The communication actually in existence cost, of course, at least as much again, owing to the duplication of the cables. The cost of laying down the ordinary telegraph overhead wire is said to be about L2O to L3O per mile in this country. A submai ine cable costs about Ll5O to L2OO per mile. As the line between Old Westminster and New Westminster consists of 4,500 miles overhead wire and 3,000 miles cable, the cost may be roughly estimated at L 150,000 for the land lines, and L 525..000 for the submarine section.

The conversation was carried on by means of the ordinary Morse duplex instruments at each end. At Waterville, about ten miles from Valentia, where the English end of the cable is connected with the share, the message is taken off by Sir W. Thomson's recorder, which produces a delicate wavy pencilled line. The cable messages are much more difficult to read than those sent by a Morse instrument. The alphabet is much more singular to the eye, and seems utterly unintelligible to all but the initiated. The current on this side was generated by thirty cells which transmitted the message from London to Waterville. On the American side the line was worked by a similar or greater number at New Westminister, while relays of an equal number of cells were established at seven points en route, the current used in each case having a range of about 600 miles. The current necessary to cross the Atlantic is much feebler. A single cell will generate enough electricity to carry the message from the Clld World to the New. This is owing to the much more perfect insulation of the cable. The message from our special commissioner vyas, therefore, transmitted by the Morse at New Westminster, was read off at Canso, in Nova Sco.tia, and retransmitted to Waterville, where it was read off by the operator and retransmitted to London, where it was recorded on a Wheatstone receiver, and read off at the same time by an ordinary sounder, the click of which was almost incessant. The small office in the Royal Exchange, in the City of London, where the conversation was carried on, was a long, narrow room, devoted wholly to telegraphic work. No mahogany fittings, no mirrors, no adornment beyond a green baize board on which were pinned instructions respecting the messages of American correspondents in London transmitted each night to New York. A few cable maps, official notices, telegraph instruments, pneumatic tubes and batteries, completed the furnishing of the office. The wire outstripped the sun by nearly eight hours, it being one o'clock in the afternoon at New Westminster when it was nine o'clock at night in London,