Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 92, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 August 1909 — WHALE TANGLED IN CABLE. [ARTICLE]

WHALE TANGLED IN CABLE.

That Why Communication With Alaska. Ceased. A big whale recently played havoc with the cable connecting the Territory of Alaska with. Seattle, and It cost Uncle Sam many dollars to repair the damage. Sent north to discover the cause of a sudden interruption of cable service between Valdez and Sitka, Captain Laflin, of the United States cable ship Burnside has just returned here with an interesting story. The cable ship picked up the cable near Cooks Inlet of Sitka and found enough work to keep the crew busy for several days. A whale feeding on the bottom of the ocean and swhnmlng along with its mouth wide open in order that the meshes of whalebone might catch and hold food collided with the cable. The cable became entangled in the long bunches of whalebone hanging from the upper jaw of the whale and th< great fish in its struggle to spit out the cable turned over and over, dived and leaped until the inch and five-, eighths of wire rope was twisted and kinked in a tangle worse than the famous Gordian knot of old. Unable to free itself the whale drowned, and the crew of the Burnside never had a worse job of lifting a cable than when they tried to haul on board the wire some miles off Cooks Inlet. When the twisted and knotted cable was finally brought on deck the partly decayed carcass of the whale was still attached to it. The cable was severed and again connected and put into service while the ship’s crew cleaned up the kinked section of cable. It is believed that more than 200 feet of cable was .twisted into a knot. The cable did not part because of its tensile strength of 20,000 pounds. Some years ago the cable was found twisted and knotted in a like manner and now Captain Laflin thinks he can explain the reason for it. The kinked cable then caused a great deal of discussion among sailors and gave rise to the theory that it had been twisted by jagged rocks turned over and over by a submarine earthquake.—'New York Sun.