. Bell telephone magazine . Shore-end problems known for years Before Cyrus Field completed laying the first over-seas telegraph cable—which John Greenleaf Whittieronce described as the fall of the oceans wall—Matthew Fontaine Maury, a pioneer in the scienceof oceanography, warned Field that the greatestpractical difficulties would be encountered at. either end of the line, where the cables reach shal-low water. As Maury foresaw, shore-end problems haveplagued otherwise reliable submarine cable big offenders: commercial fishing nets anddredges that snarl and snap the cables as they
. Bell telephone magazine . Shore-end problems known for years Before Cyrus Field completed laying the first over-seas telegraph cable—which John Greenleaf Whittieronce described as the fall of the oceans wall—Matthew Fontaine Maury, a pioneer in the scienceof oceanography, warned Field that the greatestpractical difficulties would be encountered at. either end of the line, where the cables reach shal-low water. As Maury foresaw, shore-end problems haveplagued otherwise reliable submarine cable big offenders: commercial fishing nets anddredges that snarl and snap the cables as they aredragged along the ocean bottom. Cables have alsobeen occasionally broken or damaged by undersealandslides, icebergs, currents, action of the surf andrough ocean bottom conditions. The Bell System, aware of the threat posed byfishing activity when it laid the first transatlantic tele-phone cable, picked a route off Newfoundland whichwas relatively free of fishing activity. Within threeyears, however, trawlers had moved into the areain large numbers, and the cable was broken for thefirst time. AT&Ts Long Lines Department, which is respon-sible for overseas service, decided then that the bestway to protect cables was to bury them beneath theocean bottom. To examine Newfoundlands conti-nental shelf. Bell Telephone Laboratories designedan
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Keywords: ., bookauthoramerican, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, bookyear1922
