The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-08-22

Havana Dispatch in Cincinnati Enquirer Today-more than six months since I first saw the work of the wreck-the
 greater part of the ship is buried in sticky, black mud, and there is every prospect that at least six months more will elapse If not a much longer time-before the hulk Is fully exposed and raised" if it is ever found possible to float any part of it.
 No one who has seen the wreck and
 been on it and through it can understand it's almost impossbly tangled condition.
 The stern of the ship Is comparatively | intact; but not more than a third of what was the original vessel is recognized | as such. Amidships the tange begins. | Tunnels, coming towers, decks, cabins. l engine rooms, machinery, all a tangled, | pathetic mass that even the most expert
 of the naval constructors and engineers
 have been unable to classify properly. | The whole bow of the vessel was blown
 off, turned around and pointed back to-
 ward the stern. The titanic force of the | explosion-or explosions, for there were | two of them without question-impresses
 the observer as having been appalling | Think of a force that would break steel battleship in twain and dance the half of | 1t about like a cork
 | In the captains cabin and in the other quarters that have been uncovered and
 mud relieved, articles of various sorts in
 most remarkable preservation have been found. The most striking thing in this line is a box of rubber bands in a perfect
 state of elasticity and preservation. Their immersion in the intensely salt waters O. Havana harbor appears to have improved them, if anything. Bits of leather sword hilts, shoes and caps have come out
 practically uninjured. All metals, how | ever, show the effect of the immersion. | Swords have been found so corroded that
 the blades fall apart. Strangely, the finest
 steel appears to have been the first of | materials to succumb.
 There Is, roughly, 25 feet of mud to | take out yet before the Maine can be
 raised" The bling that forms the ex-
 terior of each of the caissons composing
 the cofferdam is 50 feet long Between a5
 and 30 feet of water was pumped out. | There is nothing but mud remaining. But
 1t is glue-like mud and is 10 times harder | to get rid of than the water was Hy-
 draulic pumps have been installed but | the work put upon them is so unusual that they haven't been successful as yet | Oxygen -acetylene apparatus was used
 for the first time on August to separate -"cut up'-the steel and Iron of the ship where 1t was necessary to remove these
 tangled portions hampering the further
 work of excavation. This apparatus re-
 sembles, in a way, a plumbers blow lamp. | Only the intense heat cuts through metal
 as knife would through butter five- inch square piece of steel was severed I today so quickly that the operation sp- peared to be almost magical.
 | The method of cutting away the op-
 the wreck is entirely removed
 The whole part of the ship so far ex- posed is incrusted with oysters and bar
 nacles-nostly oysters. Hundreds of thou- | sands of the bivalves have attached them selves to the hulk. When the water was being removed from the cofferdam thou hands of fish and cells splashed and strug- | gled in the inclosure. There were many | of the several hundred workmen em- | ployed by Major Ferguson who took home l strings of fish every night when they quit workI Now. of course. there is nothing but slimy mud within the inclosure