BACK REFLECTION

HISTORICAL CABLE LOCATING (PART 2)

BY PHILIP PILGRIM

INTRODUCTION

This is the second in a series of three articles addressing the up-andcoming field of Telecom Archeology. In this issue we will provide a guide on how you can find Victorian era submarine cables near you. (Near being relative to perhaps the odometer reading of a 2-year-old car for some landlocked folks).

You must wonder if these cables still exist to be found? It is quite clear that the earliest submarine cables were built to last. The 1874 Direct Cable connecting the USA to the UK via Nova Scotia had been in service well into the 1950’s; albeit a few patches and re-routes were made during its approximately 75 years of service! This durability was built into even the earliest cables from 1851 onward and for most of them, they still lay on the ocean floor and in trenches from the shore to the cable station.

Years of tidal currents, wave activity, and drifting sand often exposes the cables at the beaches. Storms, and in colder areas, ice barges piling on the shore, will expose the cables and even move them. These natural forces, and those unnatural forces, from fishing and marine activities, can cut out sections of the cable and even separate the soft rubber-like insulating core from the exterior’s armoured wires. Hopefully, this convinces you that there is cable to be found; but before we get into how to find cables, it is best practice to address safety first. I must beg that you learn from what I say, not from what I have done and am about to share (note I did not include “we have done” nor Janet).

Figure 2: Museum Cable with Shell

SAFETY

Let’s start with a bang. Be aware of unexploded ordinance UXO. I kid you not. I was tangled up in this twice in the last five years here in Nova Scotia. Although I was aware of these dangerous items, and I had some training from working on a project in western Africa back in 2012, I could not avoid these two close calls.

Figures 3 Shell circa 1850-1865

UXO’s locations vary around. The common source of these are military dump’s into the ocean’s after a major war, or military/ non-military firing of weapons at beaches. I had thought that lost shotgun shells from duck hunters would have been my only risk but I was wrong. The first live shell I dug up with a shovel occurred when exploring an old road from the 1850’s that was overgrown. I had a metal detector and was finding wagon wheels and various other bits then I dug up a shell. After removing dirt I realized what was in my hand so I put it in a conspicuous spot and alerted the RCMP of it. It seemed to be the size of a 37mm “Pom Pom” shell as a reference. I hope to visit the spot again this summer and if it is still there, I now know who to call. An irony is that as I am writing this article and looking for photos, here is one from the local historical museum near where I found the shell (Figure 2). I had taken the photo of the subsea cable on the wall but now I see a shell to the right similar to what I found! I have to go back for sure now…. Murphy!

Figure 6: Live Power Cables

Figure 7: Old Abandoned 3 Phase Power Cable

Figure 8: Cable Protected with Articulated Pipe Exposed by Stream

Figures 9: Melted Gutta Percha

The second shell was given to me by my brother Sean who transported it over 150 km in his car. Sean and his wife Sarah were enjoying a trip to a location on the Fundy shore called Ottawa House. This area has the highest tides in the world. When walking along the shore, they found an interesting object that they thought could be a submarine cable section, so they brought it to me. It certainly looked interesting and very old. It was ~ 10 inches in length and roughly cylindrical, like a cable, with a diameter of ~ 2.5 inches. It was encrusted in a thick layer of marine growth mixed with dissolved metal from years of electrolysis. I have seen this caked on many cable samples where the iron from the armour seemed to migrate outward and form an outer crust in the jute that wrapped the cable. The striking part of the object was a beautifully machined brass ring exposed near one end. Was it a fitting of some sort? So, in Sean’s garage, the good old-fashioned technique of removing the crust by chipping began.

Figure 10: Bird Caged Cable Releasing Core

Figure 11: Wire Rope

With careful strikes of a hammer, we soon exposed a portion of the body. It seemed to be made of a grey zinc/ lead material, so it became very interesting and more chipping…. but suddenly the smell of sulfur and the exposure of the lead body beginning to curve towards a familiar shape made us stop instantly. We had a live shell! (Figures 3&4) We put it in a plastic container filled with water and moved this to the back of his lot near the forest. After contacting a few military museums seeking advice on what it was and what to do, an expert at the National War Museum in Ottawa said to call the military bomb squad. It took most of the day and many calls, but they finally came and removed it. We are not sure what they ultimately did with it. From looking at online photos of old shells, it seemed like a Schenkel Shell of the USA or an Armstrong Shell from Britain. These pre-dated the invention of dynamite and were used in the 1850s/1860s. They were basically reshaped cannon balls with black powder inside. Perhaps I should write more on Samuel Colt’s cables?

Tides can trap you. When exploring be mindful of the low tide and high tide locations and for ways to get off the beach. Janet and I were in this situation when hunting for our second cable. I was a bit more relaxed than Janet but we are walking on an ever-narrowing beach with a 30’ escarpment on our right and the tide coming in on our left. We did get out; but it was not a fun time (Figure 5). Note that it is approximately 6 hours from low tide to high tide. Footing. You may find yourself exploring boulder fields placed to mitigate tidal erosion. These are not the places to go bare foot or in sandals. A fall would be very bad. If you explore these areas tread carefully and plan each step.

Dangerous power cables (Figures 6&7). Often were there were old telecom cables, there may have been, or there are high voltage power cables. Avoid these locations. Water and electricity are never a good mix.

Do not cut cables you find. As cables from the 1850’s look like cables of today (wire rope) cutting into one could disrupt a working telecommunications line or a working high voltage power line. If you are lucky to find a cable location, be happy with that. If you are very lucky and find a cable scrap, be very happy!

RESOURCES

A good desktop study has always been the best way to start a subsea megaproject project so the same applies here. Maps are your best friend. Spend some time researching before you head out. Tips on this follow in the article. Here are three excellent resources to help you locate cable landing locations: • i-Boating online charts: https://fishing-app. gpsnauticalcharts.com • Google Earth: https://www.google.com/earth/versions • David Rumsey Maps: https://www.davidrumsey.com

Figure 12: Cable Exposed at Low Tide

If you wish to go deeper, check out old books online, maps, and charts in antique shops, or perhaps a friend with a boat may have charts. Maritime museums and local museums and historical societies often have useful information.

PLANNING

Cable routes are traditional and go back nearly 175 years. They generally connect large, populated areas using the shortest paths. If you know of a cable route today, there is a good chance cables ran along the same route for decades. Right of Ways, landing rights, geology, geography, tides, and wave action also resulted landing sites being reused. The easiest way to find out where cables can land would be to use the i-Boating online charts (link above in the resource section) then zoom in and browse the coast lines near your location. Look for lines with squiggles over them.

Figure 14: Cable Discarded Beside Far Guardrail

These are international navigational symbols for submarine cables. I checked a few areas and noted cables on the charts going back to the late 1800’s so it is not just contemporary cables shown. It also seemed to be fashionable to land cables on sandy beaches in the 1800’s to minimize damage from waves on rocks (which destroyed the first submarine cable of 1850).

Figure 15: 1940 German Map (David Rumsey Website)

David Rumsey’s map site can be searched easily, and the maps viewed efficiently and quite speedily. It had superb search filters by year so this helps in finding cables that may have just been laid.

Figure 16: Cable landing at Port Cornah (i-Boating Chart)

Google earth can be used to compare old maps with current locations to find easiest access or to plot GPS data that you may have collected in the field.

If you look on Google maps and happen to see a road named “cable road” running to a beach, there is a good chance it leads to where submarine cables land. In planning your search, you must also consider access to the site and if any access permissions are required.

Time of day, and tides are also important. It is best to go around low tide so that your search area is maximized. Early in the morning when the sun is lower, and the wind is usually still is a nice time. You can see more in the water and not get a sun burn. Also, the beaches are less populated then.

Time of year is also a factor. In this area, cable can be exposed following the spring thaw and ice flows as well as after hurricanes in the fall when the sands are greatly disturbed (Figure 8).

Of course, the most important part of a cable hunt is food! Be sure to pack a nice lunch and make it a memorable day on the shore. You may not find anything, but sun, water and fresh air all go very well with a picnic basket filled with goodies.

Finally, beach glass is a fun item to lookout for. You can usually find it and take some home as a consolation prize.

HOW TO LOOK

I have been lucky to live in an area filled with cable landings going back 170 years and also to travel and work at cable stations around the world. Here are some tips for where to look and what to look for.

Gutta Percha floats, and melts on sunny days! (Figure 9) Often, the soft rubbery insulating core of the submarine cable, has been separated by wave action and it breaks away from the armoured wires. (Figure 10) This flotsam will then travel with seaweed, driftwood, and human trash to be deposited in the upper tidal zone. If you look at the high tide areas, you may find black snake-like submarine cable core tangles in the rocks and boulders at high tide. The seven twisted copper wires in its centre will reveal it to be a submarine cable core. You will also find modern electrical wires from wharves that had broken up or from human trash dumped in the sea. If there had been particularly heavy storms, small sections of submarine cable can be trapped in the rocks.

Figure 17: Cable landing at Port Cornah (i-Boating Chart with Satellite Layer)

A warning that you may have a few false alarms by discovering “wire rope.” It is extensively used for marine projects such as wharfs and in shipping. This often gets washed up and snagged in the boulders. (Figure 11) As mentioned above, be careful of your footing when searching in the rocks and boulders.

Submarine cable is usually found at low tide near the water line. Usually it gets severed at the high tide area by humans or nature and curls up not far away in the area of waves. It can often pop out of the sand. (Figure 12)

The other area where it can be visually located is coming out of banks high above the beach. Coastlines are eroding so the cable may have been buried in the ground 100 years ago but with coastline erosion, that same cable may have been under cut and is now coming out of a bank with the beach far below. (Figure 13)

Figure 20: Port Cornah Mentioned (Google Books)

Figure 18: Port Cornah Image (Google Street View)

Figure 19: Port Cornah Cable Record (Atlantic-Cable.com)

Metal detectors can be used to find buried cable, but it is no fun digging. I recommend only using these for special projects. Let nature do the hard work for you and visit the beach several times. Sometimes you will find an item of interest then the next time it is reburied. Beaches are dynamic! I’ll digress and mention that I did find a potential meteorite when looking for a submarine cable with a metal detector. I have to get it checked by an expert. It is at a friend’s house. I found it in a soft mossy forest floor ~ 6” under the surface. The area was mostly granite so this was an obvious anomaly and its location in undisturbed topsoil made it more of a mystery. Btw the metal detector was purchased from a city worker who used it for finding water pipes and sewage lines. Perfect for iron submarine cables.

Our oddest cable finds were near a bridge over a river ~10km from where the cable landed. Perhaps it was used to weigh down an illegal net or it was discarded by a fisherman when cleaning his nets and drying on the guard rails of NS. (Figure 14)

EXAMPLE USING ONLINE TOOLS

Let’s see if there is anything interesting on the Isle of Man:

David Rumsey has a 1940 German Map shows 3 landing sites. P. Cornah, Douglas and Ronalds Way (Figure 15) i-Boating shows this cable and details where it lands. (Figure 16)

Turning on the European Satellite Imagery Layer on i-Boating shows this to be a nice place! (Figure 17)

Google Maps gives us this street view. (Figure 18)

Could that be the cable station? I bet for sure!

Let’s search using Google and the terms Port Cornah Submarine Cable

Of course! A hit from Bill Burns’ excellent atlantic-cable.com site gives 1885 3 conductor 35 nautical miles in length (Figure 19)

Searching Google Books gives a blurb on the cable in an 1887 German book. (Figure 20)

Have fun finding cables…. and if you are ever in Nova Scotia and want to see some, look me up!S TF

PHILIP PILGRIM is the Subsea Business Development Leader for Nokia's North American Region. 2021 marks his is 30th year working in the subsea sector. His hobbies include "Subsea Archaeology" and locating the long lost subsea cable and telegraph routes (and infrastructure). Philip is based in Nova Scotia, Canada.

PHILIP PILGRIM is the Subsea Business Development Leader for Nokia's North American Region. 2021 marks his is 30th year working in the subsea sector. His hobbies include "Subsea Archaeology" and locating the long lost subsea cable and telegraph routes (and infrastructure). Philip is based in Nova Scotia, Canada.