The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1918-09-26

II II seagong condition. among the
EEAMSl methods which have gradually been
NNAEEJ improved in England the strin-
gency of the shipping shortage be-
came greater each month The why the
British authorities not fully equipped to
raise every ship that sunk from the very
start of the is purely commercial. Salving
ships costs money Building ones costs
money So long as the cost of saving was equal
or even slightly in excess of the cost OF building
so long it was worth the while of owners TO
order salvage operatiOns-just so long were in
vention and progress in the art of salvage de-
layed. When the saving of ships became urgent
in the course of 1916 inventors of new apph-
ances and new methods salvage experts of many
years standing set their brains to work, and the
result is that today ships be raised and re-
paired from positions that two years ago would
have been abandoned hopeless.
As showing how need stimulates invention, l
may instance ii discovery in chemistry which
has proved be of the utmost value in salvage
work, writes II. c. Ferraby in Country Life. It
is obvious that when ship, laden with grain
beef other perishable stuffs. gets water-logged
with seawater, something very. unpleasant is go
ing to happen to her cargo. In point of fact it
turns into miniature poison-gas factory. Grain
produces suphuretted hydrogen, and the salvage
men who stumble a pocket of that in
beached ship would be seized with violent sick
ness would be partially blinded for some time
and would turn dull leaden color in the face.
Experiment brought antidote to this trouble,
and now the cargo of ship that is to be salved
can be sprayed with special solution
as there is any reason to suspect poison gas.
This spraying removes all danger
Salvage work before the purely a
private enterprise. The admiralty had no salv-
age branch, and when Warships went ashore or
were beached after collision the private firms,
like the Liverpool Salvage association were
called in. War altered that like many other
things in the maritime world, and today the
whole OF the salvage work around the United
Kingdom is carried out by admiralty depart
ment. But since the manning that depart
Lent are, without exception, the former heads
OF the salvage business, the difference is mainly
IN titles and not in methods
Warshp salving is confidential, and the work
done by the department in this direction cannot
De described Its share in keeping the allies
supplied with merchant ships, however, is not
secret. and the record of work done since Octo-
Der, 1913, is excellent one. Down to the end
OF 1917 the admiralty salvage section under the
guidance of Capt. +. W. Young, had rescued 26O
wrecked mined or torpedoed ships and sent them
In for repairs. All that time their experience
was growing New material being built for
the work. new ideas were being put into prac-
teal shape, and the result is that the year 1918
has SO far seen a remarkable increase in the
number of ships saved. The figures for the
early part of this year January, Il; Febru-
ary' Al March, 81; April. Sc; May, 10; giving
total OF 147. Thus in 30 months 4O7 ships have
been restored TO the worlds mercantile fonnaoo
The Germans count all these and some of them
twice over in their calculations of the tonnage
loss inflicted on the allies by the submarine
campaign.
Every salvage will tell you that the ONLY
thing certain about it is that you never know
Wnat Is going to happen. A ship may be ashore
in the simplest position. with just one big hole
in her to be patched up. and it looks like a lob
that will take few days. In the end YOU are
perhaps, six months hanging around with that
one ship before you can get her to float Wealth
er, tides and the condition of the cargo all play
leading part in the work The only thing the
salvage man has got to do all the time is TO he
patient That, perhaps, is why they all look so
tired. Waiting is weary business
The weather is the worst enemy of salvage
men. 1t is very nice on a fine summers dav to
stand the cliffs and look down at the husv
humming workshops that we call salvage steam
ers clustered round wreck that shines red with
rust in the sunlight. The motors of the pumps
drone necessarily, and the great Pinch pines
send out cascades of gray water whose stale
scent travels far before it is lost The metal
helmeted divers Chamber up and down STRING
Tor a while IN the sun to make report of their
progress below, receiving orders for the next
stage, or just resting 1t is different when the
southwesterly gales blow. when rollers Dour in
from the Atlantic and pound down like Naasnovtb
hammers on the decks of the wreck The sal
wage boats and tugs all have to run for shelter
work has to be abandoned. and only the still'
silent hulk is left to weather the storm So LONG
a she is firmly imbedded in the sand or sbtnoIe
however, and there is plenty of water inside her
web outside, it takes a good many mon+bs
of storms to knock ship to pieces. 1t is often
necessary, in order to save a wreck from +bo
effects of weather to flood compartments in her
that had remained watertight
The problem of dealing with the water in
wrecks and in ships that have been holed but
are still ahoat has been advanced very far toward
solution during the by the general adoption
of new British invention, which has been de-
scribed a miracle of modern electrical engi.-
neering Described simply, it is an electrically
driven pump which be entirely submerged
and will stir pump efficiently as If it were
above water. The submersibIe pump, as it is
called. does things that no one ever believed
a pump could do saw one in the hold Of a
wreck recently, covered with black eviI-smeIl-