Abbeville progress. (Abbeville, Vermilion Parish, La.) 1913-1944, 1914-04-18

R8I an array of figures that
- apparently placed the
project in the realm Of
the impossible OF late the idea has
been revived. and now comes an en-
gineer with a scheme that can bois
an element OF the probable. provided
the circumstances are quite as favor
able as he imagined them to be.
PaTadoXically, the man that offers
the present solution has his home pref
ty nearly as far away from the sea as
1t Is possible TO get here in the United
States. Charles A. Smith, the author
of the plan, lives in Denver, says the
New York Sun. Briefly it is his pur-
pose to make use of a great many
powerful electric lifting magnets,
which wner energized will cling to
the steel body of the Titanic like so
many monster leeches.
When these magnets are firmly at
taehed to the skin OF the ship lines
leading surfaceward will be secured to
buoyant caissons. or camels. of steel
built especially for the purpose, and
then the inventor counts upon the
cumulative lifting force of all these
cylindrical tanks to raise the Titanic
clear of the bottom so that the wreck
into shallower water.
Each time the Titanic is halted by
the rising sea bed the connecting lines
will be shortened, the vessel raised a
few feet, and with this clearance she
will be towed nearer land. Thus step
by step the foundered ship is to be
raised and moved shoreward until the
next to the last stage Of the opera
tons finds her in water of such mod
crate depth that the ordinary diver
can be employed.
This would involve bringing the tt
tanic from her present supposed rest
Ing place. two miles down below the
surface of the sea, and transporting
her to some point near the Nova SEQ
tian coast, where a temporary resting
place could be found at a depth of not
more than 100 feet
But great physical obstacles lie in
the path of Mr.. Smiths project. To be-
gin with, it would take an immense
amount of hunting to locate the wreck.
Wrecks have a way of shifting even
after they reach the ocean bed, and
this is one Of the puzzling aspects of
a submarine problem of this sort
Take your atlas and trace the
course of the Gulf Stream as II
branches just about where the White
Star liner collided with that death
dealing iceberg. You will find that
this current Of warm water sweeps at
that point off to the southeast, and
somewhere below the Gulf Stream the
great volume of the Labrador Current
flows to the south and west, bringing
with 1t an unceasing burden of sand.
In this fashion both of these ocean
rivers have carried sand to the point
where they meet in conflict south of
Newfoundland, and thus out of this
battle has grown that steadily rising
submarine mountain or plateau called
the Grand Bank. 1t is possible that
the Gulf Stream and the Labrador Cur
rent have III the past two years sub
stantially buried the wreck of the tt
tanic. If such be the case. the hulk
may never be located.
Again, it Is not certain that the tt
tanic lies on a sandy bottom. There
is a reasonable probability that the
ocean bed at that point may be rocky.
This brings us to the question of her
probable condition as likely subject
for salvage, assuming that it be hui
manly possible to get down to her and
to attach lines or cables Ter her lifting.
The question is, so far as the salver
is concerned, Which of these ways was
the one in which the Titanic was final
ly halted at the bottom of the At
lantic? II she lies upon a rocky bed,
then. if Mr.. Smith can secure his mag
nets to her and command sufficient
lifting force. the chance of her ulti.
mate recovery brightens considerably
On the other hand, if the ship has
forced a goodly part of her body into
changed. There is no reasonable hope
of dislodging her from that anchorage
The Titanic, like her sister ship, the
Olympic, measured upon her longest
deck, 8S2 feet and her beam was 80
feet. A rectangle of these dimensions
would have a total area Of S1.144
square feet. or course, a plan view
of the Titanic's body was ship shaped
and not rectangular. and let us sup
pose that a goodly part Of it is buried
bow first in the sand. and that only 60
per cent rises above the bottom. In
that case approximately 7.O00,O OC
square inches would be exposed to the
downward thrust Of the everything two
miles of sea water.
At a depth of 10000 feet there Is a
hydrostatic pressure tending to crush
or to hold amounting to a force OF
4,540 pounds to every superficial