Heppner gazette. [volume] (Heppner, Morrow County, Or.) 1892-1912, 1911-04-13
WORK ON MAINE PROGRESSES.
Caissons Around BattIeship Com
pleted Successfully.


Havana, April 11.-In the driving
of the last few interlocking steel piles
of the 20 caissons forming the inclos-
ing wall of the huge basin or Golfer
dam surrounding the wreck of the bat
tleship Maine, the first stage in the
work of removing the shattered re-
mains of the warship has been
brought to successful conclusion.
The work was accomplished with
rapidity, and its progress was un-
marked by single mishap Aor hitch
until the introduction of the final pile,
which failed to interlock properly
with those on either side.
This gave rise to rumor that the
stability of the caisson was endanger-
ed, but exanil. on showed the trou-
BILE resulted from the piles being
slightly deformed by an accidental
blow from the iron bucket of dredge
working alongside. The extraction
and replacing of three piles served to
repair the damage. The second stage
of the work, that of filling the cais-
sons, as fast as completed, with the
mud, clay and rock dredged from the
harbor bottom, has been going on for
some time, and, now that the ring is
completed, is being pushed forward
with the utmost rapidity. The steam
dredge Norman Davis, lent to the gov
ernment by the Huston-Trumbo Dredg-
ing company, and the United States
army dredge Barnard are dumping
hundreds of tons of material into the
caissons.
1t is expected that the filling of the
caissons will be completed by the end
of April, and after that the most in
teresting stage of the work-that of
pumping out the great basin and leav-
ing the hull of the battleship in. pre-
cisely the condition she was on the
morning after her destruction 13 years
ago-will begin,
AS a guaranty of the security of the
retaining wall around the basin, it is
probable that riprap will be dumped
around the exterior of the ellipse of
caissons before the pumping begins.
The wreck itself will have to be
carefully watched as the water level
falls, there being some danger that, as
the support of the water and the mud
in which it rests is withdrawn, the
hull may careen, just as ships have
been known to do in drydock when in
sufficiently secured.
AS soon as the wreck is fully ex-
posed, the work of exploration in
search of human bodies will take pre-
cedence. 1t is practically certain
that when this stage of the work is
reached, United States man-of-war
will be ordered to HAVANA and will
lie close to the wreck to receive the
bodies as fast as they are recovered,
and transport them to their final rest
ing place. After that will come an
exhausting scrutiny of the shattered
wreck by experts, who, in the opinion
of engineer officers, will be able to
determine beyond all question precise
ly the character of agency by which
the destruction of the Maine was eff
fected.
Probably many months will elapse
before the final stage OF the work
the extraction and disposition of the
wreck. 1t is known that the forward
part of the ship, about one-third of
her length, is practically detached
from the rest, and it is so shattered
it will have to be extracted piecemeal.
When the after part has been strip
ped, so far as possible, of all heavy
weights, including the two turrets,
weighing with their pairs of ten-inch
guns about 200 tons each, it will be
possible to build bulkhead across the
shattered end and float the hulk out of
the basin, to be sunk in all probability
hundreds of fathoms deep in the
straits of Florida.
Finally will come the extraction OF
the thousands of steel piles composing
the 20 caissons and the dredging OF
the material with which they were
filled. This may not be completed be-
fore the end Of the year.