A new company, not included in the preceding statistics, proposes to lay a cable from Westport, Ireland, to some point in the Straits of Belle Isle on the Labrador coast (Map A32, Map B20).
The station of the Eastern Telegraph Company is at Porthcurno Cove, Penzance, from whence it has two cables to Lisbon, one laid in 1880, 850 miles long, the other laid in 1887, 892 miles long (12), and one cable to Vigo, Spain, laid in 1873, 622 miles long (13). From Lisbon the cable is continued to Gibraltar and the East, whither we need not follow it, our intention being to confine ourselves entirely to a brief account of those cables communicating directly with Europe and America. As already stated, this company has altogether seventy cables, of a total length of nearly 22,000 miles.
The Direct Spanish Telegraph Company has a cable, laid in 1884, from Kennach Cove, Cornwall, to Bilbao, Spain, 486 miles in length (14).
Coming now to shorter cables connecting Britain with the Continent, we have those of the Great Northern Telegraph Company, namely, Peterhead to Ekersund, Norway, 267 miles (15). Newbiggin, near Newcastle, to Arendal, Norway, 424 miles, and thence to Marstrand, Sweden, 98 miles.
Two cables from the same place in England to Denmark (Hirstals and Sondervig) of 420 and 337 miles respectively (17 and 18).
The great Northern Company has altogether twenty-two cables, of a total length of 6,110 miles. The line from Newcastle, is worked direct to Nylstud, in Russia--a distance of 890 miles--by means of a "relay" or "repeater," at Gothenburg. The relay is the apparatus at which the Newcastle current terminates, but in ending there it itself starts a fresh current on to Russia.
The other continental connections belong to the government, and are as follows: two cables to Germany, Lowestoft to Norderney, 232 miles, and to Emden, 226 miles (19 and 20).
Two cables to Holland: Lowestoft to Zandvoort, laid in 1858 (21), and from Benacre, Kessingland, to Zandvoort (22).
Two cables to Belgium: Ramsgate to Ostend (23), and Dover to Furness (24).
Four cables to France: Dover to Calais, laid in 1851 (25), and to Boulogne (26), laid in 1859; Beachy Head to Dieppe (27), and to Havre (28).
There is a cable from the Dorset coast to Alderney and Guernsey, and from the Devon coast to Guernsey, Jersey, and Coutances, France (29 and 30).