The St. Mary banner. (Franklin, Parish of St. Mary, La.) 1889-1931, 1914-06-06

| been revived, and now comes an en-
gineer with a scheme that can boast
/ an element of the probable, provided
, the circumstances are quite as favor
able as he imagined them to be.
! Paradoxically, 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 when energized will cling to
the steel body of the Titanic like so
many-monster leeches.
When these magnets are firmly at
tached 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
and the floating camels can be towed
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
tan coast, where 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 it
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 it 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 In the past two years SUBJ
stantially buried the wreck of the I'll
tanic. If such be the case, the hulk
may never be located
Again, it is not certain that the Ii
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 a likely subject
Tor salvage. assuming that it be hui
manly possible to get down to her and
% attach lines or cables for her lifting.
The question Is. so far as the salver
S concerned, Which of these ways was
he one in which the Titanic was final
" halted at the bottom of the At
antic? If she lies upon a rocky bed.
hen, If Mr. Smith can secure his mag
lets to her and command sufficient ;
lifting force, the chance Of her ulti-
nate recovery brightens considerably.
On the other hand, If the ship has .
orced goodly part of her body into ,
he sea bed the situation is entirely
changed. There is no reasonable hope
If dislodging her from that anchorage.
The Titanic, like her sister ship. the
olympic. measured upon her longest
leck, 8S2 feet and her beam was 80
eet. A rectangle of these dimensions
would have a total area Of S1,144
square feet. OF course. a plan view
If the Titanic's body was ship shaped
md not rectangular. and let US sup
lose that goodly part Of it is buried
low first In the sand. and that only 60 ,
,er cent rises above the bottom. In
hat case approximately 1000, 900 t,
quare inches would be exposed to the
downward thrust Of the everything two
niles OF sea water I,
At depth OF 10000 feet there 10 a I
lydrostatic pressure tending to crush 3
r to hold amounting to force Of