The Celina Democrat. (Celina, O. [Ohio]) 1895-1921, 1914-04-24

r. I@S1l years ago. Nearly ever!
llI6TTTTTnlll time the subject ha
UWllIIV been broached some on,
WIlW has come forward witt
80 an array Of figures tina
apparently placed tn,
project IN the realm o
the impossible. OF late the idea ha,
been revived, and now comes an en-
gineer with 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 pret,
~ nearly as far away from the sea as
II 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 II 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 80
many monster leeches.
When these magnets are firmly at
tached TO the skin of the ship lines
leading surtaeeward 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
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
tions finds her in water Of such mod
crate depth that the ordinary diver
can be employed
This would involve bringing the II
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.. Smith 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 collded with that death
dealing iceberg Iou 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 |
Rows 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
I Newfoundland, and thus out of this .
battle has grown that steadily rising .
submarine mountain or plateau called .
the Grand Bank. II is possible that .
the Gulf Stream and the Labrador Cur.
rent have in the past two years sub
stanttally buried the wreck Of the Ii
tanic. If such be the case, the hulk
may never be located.
Again 1t is not certain that the tt
tanic lies on 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
for salvage, assuming that it be hu
manly possible to get down to her and
to attach lines or cables for 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 goodly part of her body into
the sea bed the situation is entirely
changed, There is no reasonable hope I
of dislodging her from that anchorage
The Titanic, like her sister ship the {
Olympic, measured upon her longest
deck, $50 feet and her beam was 80 +
feet. A rectangle of these dimensions !
would have a total area of 81,144 2
square feet. or course, a plan view
Of the Titanic's body was ship shaped 7
and not rectangular, and let US sup "
pose that goodly part of it is buried S
bow first in the sand, and that only GO s
per cent rises above the bottom. In {
that case Approximately 100000 a
square inches would be exposed to the Il
downward thrust Of the everything two b
miles of sea water. #
At a depth of 1O,5OO feet there is a T.
lydrostatic pressure tending to crush K
Or to hold amounting to a force Of Il
i,540 pounds to every superficial V
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