Stanley Mills jr., age 10, Of Newport News9 va., for his question:

What is a cablegram?

A radiogram may be sent by radio signals over land or sea. A wire or telegram travels by telegraph over land circuits. A cablegram is a telegraph message sent by wire cables laid under the sea. Many countries are linked by cable systems on the ocean floors, but the most famous one lies on the floor of the atlantic. It was the first long, ocean going message carrier, and it was finished 99 years ago.

A thick, heavy cable can telegraph 400 words a minute and carry them clearly for thousands of miles. Each message is fed to a special typewriter that punches holes in a strip of paper. The holes are a translation of the message in code. The code is fed to another machine that feeds it to the telegraph cable. When the cablegram reaches the other end of its journey, another machine translates it back again into printed words.