Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 03.djvu/873

* CABLE. 769 CABLEWAY. pipe. Submarine cables for telefjraph and tele- phone lines are much like the iinderjiround cables of the first class for electric li,i.'hlin<;, but arc commonly armored with strands of iron wire. (See Tei.egrapiiy, Submarine. ) Aerial cables for long-distance power transmission are commonly neither insulated nor armored. For example, the aluminium cable for the ISl-mile transmis- sion line of the Hay Counties Power Company, in California, is seven-eighths of an inch in outside diameter and consists of 37 aluminium wires twisted into a rope without insulation or armor. These cables carry a current of 40,000 volts. Aerial cables for local distribution are usually insulated. This insulation is usually in two parts: one of insulating material impervious to moisture, placed next to the wire, and the other of some substance which resists abrasion or other mechanical injury. In the most expensive grades ■of wire more than two coatings are employed. Various special cables are employed. For ex- -ample, there is in use in Xew York City a three- conductor cable for transmitting three-phase lighting current from the main stations to sub- stations. This cable may be broadly described as consisting of three separate insulated cables of .37 wires, twisted together with the s])aces filled with jute and the whole lirst insulated and then armored with lead pipe. Concentric cables are another special form. They consist first of one wire core of twisted wires, second a thick layer of insulation, third a layer of spirally •wound wire or wire strands, fourth a layer of insulation, and fifth a protective coating or armor. See Telegraphy, Submarine. Consult the sections relating to electric cable construction to be found in Crocker. Electric Lighting, Vol. II. (New York, I'.iOl) ; Foster, Electrical Engineer's Pocket-Book (Xew Y'ork, 1901); Houston, A Dictionary of Electrical Words, Terms, and Phrases (Xew York, 1894). CA'BLE, George Washixgtox (1844—). An American novelist and writer on social ques- tions. He was born in Xew Orleans, October 12, 1844. On his father's side he is of Vir- ginia stock, and on his mother's side of Xew England ancestry. After scant schooling, Cable became a clerk in Xew Orleans, and in 1863 en- tered the Confederate Army, where he served in the Fourth Mississippi Cavalry. At the close of the war he became a civil engineer, but malarial fever drove him back to mercantile life and he was emploved as accountant in a firm of cotton factors '.ill 1879. During this period he wrote for the X'ew Orleans Picayune, under the pseudo- nym of Drop Shot, and it was at this date that he published his first volume of fiction. Old Creole Days, a collection of short stories dealing with the then unexploited types of social life in Xew Orleans and Louisiana. This was followed by The (Jrandissimes (1880), which is probably his best work: Madame Delphine (1881); Dr. Sevier (1883): lionarcnture (1888); Strange, True Stories of Louisiana ( 1880) ; and, less valu- able and interesting, John March. Soiithcrni r (1894). These constitute an original and uni(|ue body of fiction. His most recent novels are The Cavalier (1901), and Byloic Hill (1902). Cable is less popularlv known in his more expository books. The Creoles of Louisiana (1884), The Silent South (1885), and The egro Question (1890). In 188.5 Cable removed to Xew Eng- land, living first at Simsburj', Conn., and later at Xortliampton, Mass. (1886). The value of Cable's best work is recognized by all students and critics of American literature, and a|>prccia- tions of his work are to be found in contemporary reviews. CABLE MOLDING. In architecture, a mold- ing cut in the form of a rope, the twisting lieing priiniinently shown. It was much used in later Xorman work. CABLEWAY. A hoisting and conveying de- vice, employing a suspended cable as a trackway, and ditlering from ropeways (q.v.), which can- not be used for hoisting, being limited to the sole function of conveying. Wliile ropeways date back to the early part of the Xincteenth Cen- tury, the cableway had its origin practically in an inclined hoisting and conveying device in- vented about 1800, and still extensively used in the slate-quarries of Vermont and Pennsylvania. These first cableways consisted of a winding- engine with one drum, a suspended cable, a cable- carriage traveling on the suspended cable, a fall block adapted to rise and fall from the cable- carriage, and a hoisting-rope operating the same. The suspended cable or track cable of these cableways ran on an incline from the top of a trestle tower to a ground anchor. Horizontal cableways of short span were used in the con- struction of the piers of the Saint Louis Bridge. As the span of cableways became greater the necessity arose of supporting the hoisting-rope or fall rope between the tower and the c-arriage. Tlie devices for supporting the fall-rope are lemied fall-rope carriers. One of the earliest arrangements of this sort consisted of a series of blocks, at the upper end of each of which was a sheave riding on the track cable and through the lower end of which was a hole for the fall rope. These blocks were connected by a light chain, one end of which was also connected to the head tower and the other end to the carriage; as the carriage moved out from the head tower it strung the blocks at intervals along the track cable, and as the fall rope passed through a hole in each block it ■Has supjjorlcd and prevented from sagging unduly: as the carriage returned to the tower it gathered up the blocks into a bunch at the tower. This system of fall-rope carriers was objectionable chiefly because of tlie weight of the connecting chain, and although it is still used in its essential features, the heavy chains have been replaced by light steel wire con- nections and other import.tnt reductions made in the weight. A second form of fall-rope carrier arrangement much used may be described as follows: Anauxil- iary rope is suspended above the main cable and held in a parallel position to the main cable by ]>assing under wheels in the cable-carriage. On this rope a series of buttons are secured whose diameter increases with the distance from the head tower; slots in the beads of the carriers, corresponding to the diameter of the buttons, al- low each of the carriers in passing out from the head tower to be stopped at its proper button. The carriage distributes and picks up the car- riers in its forward and return journeys. Described briefly, the modern cableway consists of a heavy steel cable called a track cable or main cable, suspended with a slight sag between the tops of two timber towers so placed that the main cable .spans the quarry, canal, foundation pit. or other work on which it is to be used. On tliis