Francois Borel
Francois Borel (1842-1924)
1924 Obituary[1]
"The Late Dr. Franjois Borel.— Dr. Francois Borel who died in January at Cortaillod, Switzerland, best known as inventor of the lead-sheath for cables, started his work as a hydraulic engineer. Born at Couvet, in 1842, he was educated at the Zurich Polytechnikum, which he left in 1863. Having worked on the Rhine regularisation at Schaffhausen, he became a professor in the industrial school of La Chaux-de-Fonds while engaged in hydraulic engineering. He then went to St. Aubin as manager of works making telegraph-cables insulated with asphalt-paper and fabric, After ten years of hard work, financially hardly satisfactory, he started teaching again at Grandchamps near Cortaillod. But he continued his experiments on metal-sheathing for cables and in conjunction with Berthoud, a watchmaker, he brought out the first press for lead-sheathed cable at Geneva in 1879. Others were working on the same problem at the time and various lead-cables were soon on the market. But the new Berthoud-Borel works at Cortaillod were quite able to hold their own even when heavy cable for electric power transmission was wanted. His name is also connected with a direct current motor and an electricity meter. He died after a long active and successful life in' his eighty-second year."