A MANUAL OF THE DESIGN, CONSTRUCTION, AND OPERATION IN SIX PARTS PART III. THE CONSTRUCTION OF CABLE PLANT WITH 51 ILLUSTRATIONS BY ARTHUR VAUGHAN ABBOTT, C. E. NEW YORK MCGRAW PUBLISHING COMPANY, 1903 PREFACE. BURIED beneath the surface of the streets the Telephone Cable attracts no attention; and few subscribers even reflect that a metallic thread, like a nerve, connects their instrument to the Central Station. Except to telephonists the cable is almost unknown, and it is not strange that during the past decade but little attention has been directed to this portion of the wire plant. There are symptoms now, however, of greater activity in circuit design. The rapidly increasing demand for telephone lines is congesting wire-ways so rapidly that in many cities it is difficult, and in some places impossible, to secure in the streets the necessary room in which to place the cable. Consequently cable builders are forced to increase the number of pairs of cable. From a transmission standpoint neither resistance nor electrostatic capacity should be augmented, and the cable designer is at his wits' end to devise a method whereby he may both eat his "cake and keep it." The inventions of Dr. Pupin point to a method of vastly improving transmission upon existing lines; reveal the ability to widely extend the territory that shall in the future be covered by cable service, and hint at the possibility of Ocean Telephony. The cable iii |