Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume III

376 ENGINEERING WONDERS OF THE WORLD. at the bottom of the sea have been manu- factured and laid by British contractors ; but France, Germany, and Italy all now have their cable works and ships, whilst Japan will no doubt shortly. The statistics below present a few facts of general interest in connection with this very wide subject, which it has only been possible to deal with cursorily in the course of these pages. APPROXIMATE STATISTICS. Total length of cable laid................257,000 miles. Total cost of cable laid..................£52,000,030. Cost per mile (construction and laying)...£200. Useful life of a cable....................30 to 40 years. The author is not one of those who believe in the early consignment of cables to the region of antiquarian museums, though hav- ing great belief in the utility of wireless teleg- raphy for all maritime purposes and as a helpmate to our cable system, especially in cases where cables are ineffective. Certainly so far there are no signs of cables being re- placed by wireless telegraphy when further means of communication are required ; and, as a matter of fact, over 85,000 miles of cable have been made and laid since the Marconi Company was first established twelve years ago—more than five times as much, indeed, as was made and laid during the twelve previous years. At the moment telegraphy by cable bears much the same relation to radio (wireless) telegraphy as steam navigation does to sail navigation in the matter of speed and re- liability. COMMERCIAL CABLE COMPANY’S STATION AT WATERVILLE (general VIEW.) Some idea is given here of an Atlantic cable station of to-day. In this instance it amounts to a cable colony—practically constituting the town.