Democratic Sentinel, Volume 21, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 December 1897 — Bags Eat the Cable. [ARTICLE]

Bags Eat the Cable.

The hitherto Inexplicable injuries to the French cables in Tonquln have been traced to Insects which are pronounced by Prof. Bouvier of the Paris academy to be a new termite. These insects destroyed in a few months a cable composed of seven copper wires, covered with an insulation coated with cotton and Jute, and inclosed in a lead pipe. It will now be in order for the scientists to discover some metal which these insects do not relish as a steady diet.—Exchange.