The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1918-09-21

gency of the shipping shortage be-
came greater each month. The reason why the
British authorities were not fully equipped to
raise every ship that was sunk from the very
start of the war is purely commercial. Salving
ships costs money. Building new ones costs
money. So long as the cost of salving was equal
or even slightly In excess of the cost of building,
so long it was not 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 salving of ships became urgent
in the course of 1916 inventors of new appli-
ances and new methods, salvage experts of many
years standing, set their brains to work, and the
result is that today ships can be raised and re-
paired from positions that two years ago would
have been abandoned as hopeless.
AS showing how need stimulates invention, l
may instance u discovery in chemistry which
has proved to be of the utmost value in salvage
work, writes I'll. @. Ferraby In Country Life. 1t
is obvious that when a ship, laden with grain,
beef, or other perishable stuffs, gets waterlogged
with seawater, something very unpleasant is 60
Ing to happen to her cargo. In point of fact, 1t
turns into : miniature poison-gas factory. Grain
produces sulphuretted hydrogen, and the salvage
men who stumble on q pocket of that In a
beached ship would be seized with violent sick
ness, would be partially blinded for some time,
and would turn a dull leaden color in the face.
Experiment brought an antidote to this trouble,
and now the cargo of a ship that is to be salved
can be sprayed with a special solution as soon
as there is any reason to suspect poison gas.
This spraying removes all danger.
Salvage work before the war was purely q
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 an admiralty depart
ment. But since tha mon moppip0 tbot donar+-
lent are, without exception, the former heads
OF the salvage business, the difference Is mainly
In titles and not in methods.
Warship sa1ving 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, 1910, is an excellent one. Down to the end
OF 1917 the admiralty salvage section, under the
guidance of Capt. f. w. Young, had rescued 260
wrecked, mined or t~orpedoed ships and sent them
IN Tor repairs. All that time their experience
was growing. New material was being built for
the WORK, new ideas were being put into prac-
ucal shape, and the result is that the year 1918
mas SO far seen a remarkable increase in the
number OF ships saved. The figures for the
early part of this year are: January, IA; Febru-
airy, Al; March,. 81; April, SO; May, 10; giving a
total of 147. Thus in 80 months 4O7 ships have
Deen restored to the worlds mercantile tonnage.
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 man will tell you that the only
thing certain about it Is that you never know
what 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 1t looks like a lob
that will take a 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
a leading part in the work. The only thing the
salvage man has got TO do all the time Is to be
patient. That, perhaps, is why they all look SO
tired. Waiting is a weary business.
The weather is the worst enemy of salvage
men. 1t is very nice on a fine summers day to
stand on the cliffs and look down at the busv
humming workshops that we call salvage steam
ers clustered round a wreck that shines red with
rust in the sunlight. The motors of the pumps
drone necessarily, and the great 12-inch pines
send out cascades of gray water whose stale
scent travels far before 1t is lost. The metal
helmeted divers Chamber up and down. sitting
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 pour I'm
from the Atlantic and pound down like Naasmvtb
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 SIN
silent hulk is left to weather the storm. So lone
as she is firmly imbedded in the sand or shingIe.
however, and there Is plenty of water inside her
as wen as outside, it takes a good many months
of storms to knock a ship to pieces. 1t is often
necessary, in order to save a wreck from the
effects of weather, to flood compartments I'm her
that had remained watertsght.
The problem of dealing with the water in
wrecks and in ships that have been holed hnt
are still ahoat has been advanced very far toward
solution during the war by the general adoption
of a new British Invention. which hoe haao a.
scribed as a miracle of modern electrical enei-
neering. Described simply. 1t is an electrically
driven pump which can be entirely submerged
and will stir pump as efficiently as If 1t were
above water. The submersible pump, as 1t Ia
called, does things that no one ever believed
q pump could do. 1 saw one in the hold of a
wreck recently. covered with a black. evil-smelL