The “Break it Down” Blog

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This absolutely fascinates me… what you see above is a world map from Eastern Telegraph from 1901 showing the break-down of the companies world-wide wiring networks.

You think of what we have today, and I’m still impressed that ships can spool out and drop down enough cable, long enough, to run wires across the Pacific and Atlanta… forget that, this shit is from 108 years ago!

Nevermind that they had to manufacturer copper runs of wire thick enough to withstand years of life underwater, but also spools big enough to run around the globe… oh yea, then don’t forget the ships big enough to troll out to the middle of the ocean and drop it down without sinking under the weight of the wire or letting the tail of wire in the water pull the boat around.

Did I mention they also didn’t have sonar to tell them where underwater rifts and canyons were to avoid dropping line down a bottomless trench?

It is absolutely amazing how advanced we were back then… we sure have come a long way, but around the time we discovered electricity the stage of mankind went from this relatively slow-paced growth to a sprint into realms of things that were previously not possible.

Sometimes I find history fascinating.