The telegraph manual: a complete history and description of the semaphoric, electric and magnetic telegraphs of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, ancient and modern.

INTERRUPTION BY THE FALLING OF TREES. 711
wire and mend it again. The first is the best, but often attended with rmuch more labor. An operator unaccustomed to
the axe, will find it very laborious to cut through a tree some
Fig. 10.
two or three feet in diameter. In case the tree is cut, care
must be taken not to stand in the line of the ascent of the wire.
On several occasions, I have known the axe-man to be thrown
by the wire from five to ten feet high. With care there will be
no danger. In case the wire has to be cut, the following should
be observed: the pulleys should be "made fast" to the wire,
as in fig. 6 preceding, eight or ten feet from each side of the
tree, the ropes should then be drawn as taut as possible and
tied. The wire can then be cut, and the ends joined and soldered. When the joint is finished, a rope should be placed
over the wire, and the ends fastened to the tree with a noose.
The pulleys should then be taken off. The strain of the wire
will then be wholly on the rope tied to the tree, which, on being untied, the wire will ascend with great force, and vibrate
like the string of a violin when touched. The slack once between the poles at the tree will be diffused over a mile of wire,
but to the eye none can be seen, the whole appearing to be as
taut as when first put up. From this description, the process
may seem difficult, but practically such is not the case. After
a line has been constructed a year or more, the wire elongates,
and there is much spare slack, so much in fact, that it would
be well to tighten the wire occasionally, when the line is generally repaired. This slack of the wire presents an opportunity
to the repairer to take out of the line bad joints, and the making of better ones.