Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

THE AFRICAN TRANSCONTINENTAL TELEGRAPH. 201 insulated brackets and the wire itself, thus causing the circuit to break and another “ fault ” to be reported. Owing to this state of things it is necessary to send out patrol parties constantly from every station to re- move these obstructions and to repair the line. It is hoped in the course of time to overcome these present difficulties to some extent by making these clearings wider and more com- plete, so that when trees are blown down they shall fall clear of the wire, and the creepers may not be able to reach the poles before the patrol parties arrive and cut them back. The damage done by animals will, however, ap- parently always be present, and it seems im- possible to devise any means of preventing this. Taken as a whole, the health of the con- struction parties was surprisingly good through- out the whole length of the country that the line lias traversed, and this not- Health of withstanding the unhealthiness the • „ of the climate and the almost Constructors. constant proximity of wild animals. Special precautions were taken, how- ever, to protect those engaged in the con- struction work from the climate, and period- ical medical examinations were held all along the line. The worst outbreak that took place was a severe epidemic of smallpox among one party working on the Tanganyika plateau. When one of the transport parties arrived at this plague-stricken camp, every man of the construction staff was found to be suffering more or less from the scourge. The native carriers, on realizing the true state of affairs, threw down their loads and fled in terror, nor could any amount of coaxing or threats in- duce them to return. Shortly afterwards an official of the Company who travelled up to the camp found the whole route for many miles strewn in all directions with material and equipment, lying where it had been thrown down by the frightened carriers. Though the greater part of this was subsequently recovered, the incident meant a substantial loss. The line has demonstrated already its use- fulness for other than purely commercial pur- poses. As soon as it reached the native settle- ment of Nkata Bay on Lake Nyasa, it was promptly made use of by the Joint Commission that had been appointed a short time previ- ously by Great Britain and Germany for the delimitation of the respective spheres of influ- ence of the two Powers in this part of Africa. By means of special relay apparatus set up at several stations, including Blantyre, Umtali, Salisbury, Bulawayo, and Kimberley, signals were exchanged between the Commissioners and the Astronomer Royal at Cape Town, which enabled the longitudinal and latitudinal points of the boundaries agreed upon to be determined far more accurately than would otherwise have been the case. Even with the line in an uncompleted state the commercial returns have already been very good, and seem to indicate that it will be a great success when it is p , , j ui Commercial open trom end to end. Jbor 1 Success. the first ten years of its ex- istence, ending December 31, 1907, 203,350 messages have been sent over the line or por- tions of it, containing in all 4,631,580 words, and the number of messages now being received and dispatched shows a steady increase month by month. In addition to the main line from Umtali to Udjidji, there are two branch lines—one from Chikwawa to Chiromo at the mouth of the Shiré River, a distance of 67 miles ; and the other from Domira Bay to Fort Jameson, the administrative headquarters of North - east Rhodesia and the headquarters of the Afri- can Transcontinental Telegraphic Company in South Africa. The length of this line (one of the best paying sections) is 128 miles. The united length of the main and branch lines amounts to 1,584 miles. Other branches will soon be built. As a temporary expedient, and in order to make it possible to telegraph from the one