IMPROVED CABLE COMMUNICATION

Evening Star, Issue 17192, 6 November 1919, Page 8

IMPROVED CABLE COMMUNICATION

If you had a big dirigible at Panama and wanted to fly to Yokohama (Japan), would you start northward, cross tho Gulf ot Mexico, pass over Galveston (Texas), strike the Pacific Ocean in tho neighborhood of Portland, proceed northward until the Aleutian Islands appeared on tho horizon, and complete your journey down the east coast of Asia? Very probably not; but if you really wanted to take the shortest direct air lino you would follow this course, and any mariner will confirm the statement that it is the shortest route. '

In the fight being waged by North Pacific coast business men for a cable lino from Seattle to Yokohama the interesting fact has been used as an argument that the Mercator flat projection of the earth's surface is so unreliable as to distance as to bo dangerous to the trade interests of the Pacific North-west. An example of tliis is quoted from tho ' Pacific Marine Review' of San Francisco, in which an article telling of the misleading appearanco of tho Mercator map . which caused tho loss of a wrecked ship and a valuable cargo. The 'Review' says: "The loss was due to the very misleading nature of Mercator's chart, whose scale of distances from the equator to the pole increases at an ever-enlarging ratio. A wrecker of the underwriters was stationed at Juneau, Alaska., and another at Acapulco, Mexico. The underwriter's agent was instructed to send the nearest wrecker, and, grabbing a Mercator map, he placed a compass with ono leg on Monierer. where• tho >ship .was on the shoals, and drew a circle," which showed Acapulp the nearest. By actual distance, as shown in a newly arranged butterfly map, in which the sphere of "tho earth is flattened as much as possible, Juneau was much tho closer. When the Panama Pacific Exposition was first discussed objection was made to San Francisco, on the grounds ihat tho city was a long way off the track of vessels' going to the Orient through the Panama Canal. However, as a. direct rrater route is similar to a direct air route, ft. vessel after parsing through the canal would hug the Pacifio Coast as far as Portland before pushiug qft into the Pacific, and would then travel northward nearly to the islands off South-w,..--.i Alaska. From this it will be clearly seen that Alaskan cities art nearer the. Ori-snt th:>n Vancouver, that Vancouver is nearer than Seattle, that •Seattle is nearer than Portland, that Portland is neaier than San Francisco, and that San Francisco is nearer than Los _ By these illustrations Pacific Coast business men point out the great saving in distance that will ho effected by laying a new Transpacific cable along the northern route.