Shelli Kohl, age 9, of Albany, N.Y., for her question:

HOW CAN THEY MAKE TELEPHONE CALLS OVER THE SEA?

When you dial the number of a friend in the neighborhood, your call travels along telephone wires. This is a local call. You also may call up a friend who lives far away in another state. This is a long distance call and your voice may be carried either by ordinary telephone wires or by radio signals.

There are no rows of telephone poles across the oceans  yet we can make overseas calls to almost 200 different countries.

Some may be carried by cables on the floor of the ocean. Others may be carried by radio systems. And now we have a new Space Age way to make overseas telephone calls. Many of them may be picked up and relayed by satellites, orbiting high above the earth