Evening star., 1925-07-12
BY ROWLAND THOMAS.

~ to find the coin. BY the time
you have succeeded--if you
ever do--you will appreciate the diff'-
culties of deep-sea hunters who search
for sunken Valuables. A ship. in pro-
portion to the vast eXpanse of ocean.
is smaller than your coin was in pro-
portion to the 10-acre field.
1t was just few weeks ago that
treasure hunters left New York on the
steam trawlers Spray and Foam 10
search for the gold ship Merida, sunk
in collision off the Virginia Cape,
some IA years ago, and supposed to
have carried something like s5,000.00o
in coin and jewels to DavY Jones'
locker with her. These same trawlers
made a preliminary search last FAN,
and ii was reported that they had
actually located the hulk.
If those reports were correct, 80
that the traWlers have now been able
to steam right to that spot without
any hesitation or blind groping, the
Adventures have already been far
luckier than most of their kind. They
can congratulate themselves that the
hardest and most discouragine, s well
as the costliest part Of their allurine
| job is behind them. Ordinarily the
| locating of deeply submerged wreck
| in open waters is vastly more diff
cult underta king than the recovery Of
| its contents once il has been found
and buoyed.
| And the water need not he very deep
or very open to impose all but insu-
perab ble handicaps on the searchers. a.
Capt. j. +. :. Mcleod Of New York
will testify.
Capt Mcleod right now is as much
retired as a man of his habits of
mind and body can be. He is not on
| the active list. But for years on end
| he was the boss wrecking captain of
the Merritt, Chapman & Scott Corpora
! ton, known the maritime world
around for their exploits in this field
of enterprise. He was commodore of
their tout-ribbed, strong armed feet
of dredgers and sweepers. floating
derricks and wrecking lighters, pom
| toon barges and towboats. He has
salvaged broken ships and their car
goes from the shores and floors OF all
the seven seas, from the Azores to the
South Sea Islands. from the Gulf Of
st. Lawrence to Rio. and what he
| doesn't know about the job no man
knows.
/ "Conservatively spea aking. Capt.
Mcleod explained. I've found in my
experience that putting your finger on
| a Sunken wreck runs from maybe -
per cent up 10 100 per cent. or trihe
better of the work. Until you've gone
looking for them you can't realize how
hard they are 10 ind.
A Nd two or three OF the most
battling hunts in Capt. McI.eod's
well stored memory were staged, not
in the deeps of the open sea, but in the
narrow and comparatively shallow
waters OF New York Harbor. In fact.
perhaps the most elusive prize he ever
went cropping for was hidden practi-
cally within a stones throw Of the
Statue of Liberty.
1t was during the World War. Cop
per ingots worth almost 81 ,00O.O and
destined for the munitions factories
OF the allies were being taken down
the harbor as a deck load on alighter.
Just of Bedloes Island, in broad day
light. and with scores of craft close
about her on all sides. she came into
collision with another vessel. She
listed sharply hung on her beam ends
for a moment as her deck load shot
into the water. then turned bottom
| upward and went floating away to-
ward the Narrows.
First off. nothing could seem
simpler than the salvaging of that
| copper. Even at war prices. 81 600 600
worth of it made a sizable lumH.
something like l,500 tons. And there
had been a score of eyewitnesses
| thorough Seamen and waJermen.
whose experienced eyes had marked
| the exact spot of the accident. Every
| one of them was confident he could
| lower diver into the midst of the
drowned ingots the first shot. The
| only difficulty was that every one Of
| them insisted The diver should be sent
down at a different spot
But after the Merritt. Chapman &
Scott Corporation had painstakinEly
| explored every one of the score of To-
cations indicated by these expert wit
nesses. the copper was still missing.
Only after they had plotted the area
| off Bedloes Island into a number of
small squares and had divers grope
| their way over every square foot of
| the surface of each area. consuming
A whole year in the process, was the
! lost metal found.
| Capt. Mcleod has eyes Of gray Scots
! blue which twinkle with dry humor
| from under their weatherbeaten lids
Here's question for YOU" he said.
| If we were lucky in year to find
| that heap of copper which had 10 he
| lying somewhere inside a circle not
| over half a mile across at the outside.
how much luckier has the Merida ey-
pedition been if IT has so soon been
able to hook onto her wreck living
in 20 or 80 fathoms of open water
off the Virginia Capes inside circle
that must have been 10. or maybe
even 20. miles in diameter? For il
not very likely that when the Merida
was struck her officers had their posi-
ton closer than something between
and 10 miles"
Another hunt which gave infinite
trouble before it ended successfully
was for a harbor tug sunk in collision
close to Blackwells Island in the East
River. Before they would pay off the
insurance on her as total loss the
underwriters demanded proof in the
form of wreckage, and divers CROPPED
through the inky and swirling waters
of the tidal stream for weeks before