SALVAGE TRIUMPH

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 78, 29 September 1934, Page 9

SALVAGE TRIUMPH

WORK ON THE EGYPT

LATEST CONSIGNMENT

SKILL OF THE DIVERS

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, August 23.

"When tho 1\ and O. liner Egypt, in 1922, foundered off Ushant after a collision in a fog, there was specie worth £1,000,000 in her strongroom. It was not until a year later that tho wreck was located by divers of the old Artiglio, who brought up tho captain's safe. In tho past two years gold and silver valued at £800,000 has been recovered, but this year the work has been difficult becauso of tho collapso of the wrecked ship. The consignment landed this week at Plymouth included 38 bars of 400oz, 44 bars of lOOoz, 13 bars of 3740z, and 15,000 sovereigns. On the present trip the grab brought up the door of the bullion room, and divers found a sovereign which had been embedded in the thick steel by pressure of the water. The Italian ship has gone off again on what may be its last effort at this salvage operation. The- Egypt lies 400 feet below the surface, beset by strange currents and close to the remains of scores of other wrecks. Experts smiled when the question of salvage was first raised. Even when an Italian company was formed to endeavour to recover tho bullion the best terms that could bo arranged with Lloyd's, who had paid the insurance on a total loss, was a "No cure, no pay, basis. TRIUMPH OVEE MANY OBSTACLES. "The Times" outlines the work _oi' the Sorima Company, beginning with 1929:— The summer months were spent in a vain search for tho wreck, and it was not'until the following year that it was located by tho divers of the old Artiglio, who were able to bring up the captain's safe. A few months later their ship was engulfed by an upheaval of the soa caused by the explosion of charges in another wreck ou which 'they were working, and most of the crew word lost. In 1931 other divers in a new vessel, the present Artiglio, act'to work, but it. was June, 1932, by tho time they brought up the first gold. In the remaining months of the summer of that year and in the summer season last year .they recovered 74 per cent, of the sovereigns, *77.7 per cent, of the bar gold, and 97 per cent, of the silver that went down with the liner. The Artiglio left tho buoys which mark tho wreck of tho Egypt bearing further spoil, and the treasure now landed at Plymouth brings the amount of bar gold recovered up to 93 per cent, of the total; tho number of. sovereigns up to S3 per cent.; and tho amount of silver up to 97.55 per cent. There were 1089 bars of gold of different sizes in the Egypt; of these 1033 have now been saved. • DEEP-WATEK SUCTION APPABATUS. At the end of the 1933 season tho bullion room of tho Egypt had been carefully examined, and was found to be practically empty. The salvage experts then had to search outside tho bullion room for the remainder of tho treasure, representing, as can be seen from tho percentages quoted above, an important amount of money. After the collision which sank her the Egypt had a heavy list to port. In consequeneo of this, it was considered the contents of the bullion room might have forced open the portsido door. It was therefore assumed by tho Sorima Company that a part of tho missing treasure, consisting particularly of gold —as this was stowed on the extreme of the port side —might have fallen through a reserve hatchway adjacent to the port-side croor of the bullion room. The demolition of tho Egypt was planned with a view to reaching and clearing the main deck, and afterwards to cutting and removing that part of it which formed the ceiling of the bullion room. To begin now demolition for the purposo of reaching tho deck underneath the bullion room was a further and unforeseen task of increased difficulty. This year's operations, begun on Juno 17, were devoted to this new process of demolition, which was carried out and successfully ■ completed on^ August 15. The belief that the re-' mainder of the gold would be found on the deck below the bullion room proved correct. On August 16 heavy bars were brought up to the surface, and in the next four days a quantity of gold weighing more than 12cwt was recovered, together with about 15,000 sovereigns. This achievement, one of the most difficult of the salvage operations in the Egypt, is additional proof of the skill of the divers and the usefulness of the suction apparatus devised for deep-water' salvage by the Sorima Company. Without this apparatus the work would not have been possible. ___^______.