History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications
from the first submarine cable of 1850 to the worldwide fiber optic network

1870 Marseilles to Bona Cable
THE MARSEILLES, ALGIERS AND MALTA TELEGRAPH COMPANY

In 1870 this company laid a cable from Marseilles to Bona, Algeria, then on to Malta. The contract for manufacture and laying was awarded to Telcon, who sub-contracted part to W. T. Henley. CS William Cory laid the Marseilles to Bona section, and CS La Plata the Bona to Malta portion.

In 1872 the company became part of John Pender's Eastern Telegraph Company, and in 1877 Telcon made and laid a duplicate cable on the route using CS Kangaroo and CS Calabria.

DSCN0818e.jpg (102417 bytes) DSCN0821e.jpg (124072 bytes)

Presentation case of cable samples manufactured by
Telcon for the Marseilles-Bona section of the 1877 cabl
e

1877MBLabel.jpg (79131 bytes)
Eastern Submarine Telegraph Company. 1877.
Marseilles to Bona
  Type A. Shore Ends 11 Knots    
  B. Intermediate 15     " Total 470 Knots  
  D Main Cable 414     "    
Contractors. Telegraph Construction & Maintenance Company Limited
All sections have a 7-strand copper conductor.
Type A is 5 cm diameter, 10 armoring wires
Type B is 2.5 cm, 10 armoring wires
Type D is 1.9 cm, 15 armouring wires

Last revised: 19 February, 2016

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