A BRAND-NEW SCHEME FOR RAISING THE "REPUBLIC."

Golden Bay Argus, Volume XIII, Issue 50, 12 May 1910, Page 2

A BRAND-NEW SCHEME FOR RAISING THE "REPUBLIC."

The White Star liner "Republic," sunk as the result of a collision a few weeks ago, lies forty fathoms under the Atlantic. Divers cannot descend within 100 feet of her, and she is too heavy to be grappled and lifted in any ordinary way, and a "wrecking" company has just declined the job, but Mr. John Arbuckle is willing to, tackle it. He has a reputation for raising wrecks that all the other authorities have abandoned. Anyhow, his wreckers purpose to salvage the "Republic." By what sort of engineering can men hope to pull a 15,000-ton ocean liner lying in 240 feet of water to the surface ?

Divers cannot descend to attach chains or apply compressed air to the ship's water-tight compartments. Even if the air < could be applied, the the compartments are too weak to stand the pressure, for they are not built for such strain. How, then, can they hope to get a grip on the great dead weight so far beneath the surface ?

A brand new invention as far as salving sunken ships is concerned, will be put in use. No device ever used before would so much as make the "Republic" turn in her grave. But the electro magnet which is strong enough to pick up steel freight cars or huge safes as if they were feathers will probably have, its greatest test of strength on the sunken liner. No one magnet would have the power to lift the wreck, and if it had, the result would be to tear out the plates of the ship wherever the magnet had its grip. The wreckers will employ scores of magnets. They will .be great flat plate-shaped things with a 'powerful ring to which a heavy chain will be attached.

The magnets will be carefully lowered on all sides of the ship and then the electric current from inert masses of wire and iron to mighty magnets will be switched on. Instantly the magnets wUI leap through the water and hurl themselves at the sides of the ship. As long as the current continues the magnets will grip the steel plates as if welded to them. This current implies that floating about in barges will be great dynamos whirling, sending the electricity down the wires to the magnets.

So far so good, supposing the magnets are numerous and strong enough to hold the wreck while it is hauled up by the chains. But where is the power to pull coming from ? All the derrick barges on the coast could not do it, nor could steam windlasses or all the other gear which works so well in raising small boats.

"The answer is, pontoons," says Mr. Arbuckle. "Down every one of those chains I'll sink a pontoon till it reaches the magnet. Of course I'll have air pipes on each pontoon, and as soon as it is in place I'll turn on the air and blow the water out of the pontoon. Now, that pontook will be full of air instead of water and instead of hanging a dead weight on the chain, it's going to pull and tug upwards on the magnet. "We'll keep lowering magnets and chains, and putting on pontoons until the pull of those pontoons gets to be more than the wreck can hold down. Then the first thing we'll know, up she'll come to the surface. Just her masts and funnel and upper works will appear, and the tops of the pontoons. It will take a fleet of tugs' to tow that submerged wreck and the pontoons, barges and all, but, that's just a matter of doing it." The Arbuckle scheme would involve weeks and months of work. A large fleet of barges, tugs, etc., would be anchored all that time in the open ocean with not a thing to shelter them from the winter's stonus "Pomil&r Science Siftiaea."