Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1909-05-07

which Captain Merritt ever took per-
sonal charge. He has been one of the
most successful sailors the world has
ever produced, and his ships sail many
seas in their work of rescuing shipping
Oftentinles wreckers are put to their
wits end to solve the unexpected prob
lens that arise. Some years ago the
Milwaukee ran onto the rocks off the
English coast. 1t was soon found that
to get the vessel off intact was out of
the question. The forward part was so
damaged as to be practically worthless
so they built heavy bulkheads across
the beam amidships, dynamited the for
ward part away and towed the after
part safe to port, where a new forward
portion was built onto it. The same
thing almost happened with the Seuyic
another large vessel In its case both
the stem and the stern parts were
saved, and it was towed into port In
halves and there made over into as
perfect a looking ship as If it had
never met with an accident.
One of the most peculiar accidents
that ever befell a ship happened to the
Austrel in Sydney harbor some years
ago. She was coaling and the officers
had neglected to close the lower port
holes. During the night she listed to
starboard and sank in ten fathoms Of
water A Golfer dam was erected
around her superstructure, divers
closed the portfolios which were left
open and big pumps, throwing tow
of water a second, were set to pumping
the water out of the hold. The ship
soon rose to the surface as an empty
bottle tightly corked will come to the
top of the water. She was little the
worse for the experience.
Perhaps one of the most remarkable
examples of a ship commander making
fha host of fha az hand tyo u
when the Esk collided with an iceberg.
Seeing that unless he was able to light
en- his ship all hands would go to the
bottom, he tied up to the berg, I'M
loaded his cargo on it and repaired the
damaged hull, Then he transhipped his
cargo back into the Esk and continued
his journey
What constitutes the brightest chap
ter in all wrecking history was the sue
cess of the Japanese in raising the
Russian ships that had been sunk at
Port Arthur. Where the United States
has not been able to raise the one lone
Maine in Havana harbor, the Japanese
raised nearly everything at Port Ar
thur. over 100000 tons of war engines
were brought up from Davy Jones'
locker and added to the effective fight
ing strength of the Japanese army. II
the United States had raised the Maine,
and all of the ships sunk in the battle
of Santiago besides, it would not have
constituted half the task that the jap
anese successfully undertook. The fact
that the ships were blown UP by the
Russians in such way that they
hoped they could never be raised adds
to the luster of the triumph of the
Japanese in floating them. Most of
them were lying in from forty to fifty
feet of water.
The English are now engaged in an
enterprise of more than ordinary in
terest. 1t is an attempt to rescue the
treasure from the wreck of the British
warship Lutin, which was sunk in 1897,
and lies buried in the sands of more
than a century A large metal tube
100 feet long and about eight feet in
diameter has been constructed, on the
one end of which there has been built
a tiny house with water-tight windows
and doors in it. The divers will go
down in this and use 1t as the base
of operations. The sand will be sucked
away from the wreck by great sand
pumps, and then viii begin the work
of securing the treasure.
This action of the English finds a
counterpart in the efforts to raise the
Spanish armada. The Dutch sailors at
tempted to do so several centuries ago,
but their efforts at salvage all came
to naught. Napoleon afterward I'M
Later the Spaniards undertook to raise
the sunlken craft and they succeeded in
getting the treasure from most of
them.
The modern ship devoted to salvage
and wreck-raising is an intricate and
powerful machine. It's gigantic pumps,
throwing a ton of water in the time it
takes to say Jack Robinson" it's
equipment of pneumatic hammers,
drill and riveters, which can do the
work of hundreds of men in less time
than they could; it's great wrecking
cranes which can lift hundreds Of tons,
all lend effective assistance in cheating
Davy Jones out of his victories.
The records of the patent office show
that Abraham Lineolns thoughts once
turned more to the sea than to state
craft. He invented wrecking appara-
tus, whose principle has since come
into use He had two boats joined to-
gether by huge beams. They were in
tended to straddle a wreck. Cables were
to be passed under the hull, while
steam winches on the salvage boats
were to do the lifting, the principle
the great travelling cranes in big ma
chine shops.
1t has been estimated that the ton
mage lost at sea is only one-sixth as
great today as 1t was thirty years ago,
although the aggregate tonnage has in
creased threefold. In other words, the
ocean is eighteen times safer today
than it was a quarter of a century ago.
But even at that there are thousand
craft of one kind or another lost each
year.
Copyright, 1909, by Frederic J. HaslSin)
TomOrrow--Modern Marathons.