Twenty to the Mile

Download or read book Twenty to the Mile written by Derek Pugh and published by . This book was released on 2021-11-08 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the Overland Telegraph Line connecting Port Augusta with Port Darwin in 1872, and allowing telegraph connection between Adelaide and London. This is the story of the men who solved the greatest engineering problem facing Australia - the tyranny of distance. In two years, Charles Heavitree Todd, leading hundreds of men, had constructed a telegraph line across the centre of the continent. At nearly 3,000 kilometres long and using 36,000 poles at '20 to the mile', it was a mammoth undertaking. But after a huge expense, and the loss of five lives, Adelaide was linked to London via the Aboriginal lands seen by John McDouall Stuart and his party just 10 years before. The line crossed the most inhospitable parts of the country and set off under the seas north of Port Darwin to London. Messages which previously took weeks, now took hours, passing across the globe and then through eleven new repeater stations that were installed about every 250 kilometres. Each became a centre of white civilization and the cattle industry, and each held a staff of six. The unique stories of how they lived and/or died on the line remain an indelible part of Australia's history.