THE DIVER AND HIS WORK.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15169, 7 December 1912, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE DIVER AND HIS WORK.

; 1 s6me extraordinary salvage £-' : " - FEATS,

,' ! ' The diver is a man whoso occupation i* never otherwise Liuiu dangerous. And '"* " "ret there is a fascination in it not to be f found in. any other calling. He sees Y i . i«ir»ht» that must, bo for ever hidden to S ! the landsmen and ho not infrequently has ''; thrilling adventures and sensational ex- ■'!■■ ' ■'.' / Tiloit*. which read more liko the daring j ■ i imaginings of a .Tales Verno than the } actual experiences of an unemotional, unl ' imaginative work-a-day diver. ').■-' ' *': Fancy fighting your way to a sunken W:;\l ; ship hi the teeth of an army of fierce - cuttle fish, or confronted by big-toothed •■;..•■:.' etrange-looking monsters as you attempt to wend your way over the rolling boards v£? ; . ; of » wrecked —slithering along eauti- " ' ously. kicking against ropes and fallen •!■ ' timber. A hole in the torn planks means i ; a crash head-first into blackness, a mis'M placed foot may mean death. »;.;' Often tho diver is alone in the bottom <|- 'of a ship on the floor of tho ocean with 1 many thousands of pounds of treasure, ' and ho hoists the cases of bullion for f .' raising to the surfaco with us much coolnecs and imperturbability as you would i:' lift a barrel from tho floor on to a chair. ':''••,.'V The depth to which a diver can descend '■,'''. has often been discussed, and it would '": appear to be limited by his power for with- ; standing tho adverse influences acting ; upon him while carrying on his duties * . ; under water. Apparently a descent of •.'■'.'.' /thirty fathoms (180 feet) of water marks the limit of safetly for even tho few divers who possess the physical fitness iu combination "with a disregard for danger boL"-' yond tho average.

I ; ' Remarkable Endurance. f: One of tho most remarkable cases of | endurance was that of a diver named I ' Trapnsll, who remained at a depth of ,22 | ■;■;;.■ fathoms for no less than five and a half {;' hours. Eron in half this depth of water V. tho men seldom remain for so long a I s spell. At 20 feet the pressure per square f> inch is Bjlbs. It increases at ihe rate t •of 44lbs for every 10 feet descended. At 132 feet, therefore, TTapnell wa3 bearing a pressure of 561bs on every equaro inch ','.,' of his body. And for 330 minutes' There is a case on record of an English ? / diver reaching a depth of 204 feet. This • was James Hooper, engaged in recovers ; ing copper from a ship sunk somewhere |'off the South American coast. But the I' "pressure was so exhausting that had he | ,;._',' remained at that depth for more than ;,: , twenty minutes at a time the blood would :| | have been flowing freely from ears and !;s■'■' nose. \\-: • *. The great feat which is the ambition of [ every diver to perform is the recovery of treasure from sunken ships. For ordinary harbour and dock work the pay of a diver ■i[ is from £1 to £2 a -day but in the case sji of special deep-sea salvage the fees are a good deal more, and frequently a percen- || tage of the value recovered is allowed the m _ direr. I '■■-~ * ; * Diver Smetton earned £8000 by a plucky fe piece of work. He was the man chosen [$. to explore the wreck of the Esmeralda, UJ.- which sank, with £105,000 aboard her, ;| oil Gibralter in 125 feet of water. Eight ■',; divers had tried the job, but the depth m. ,-ws« too great. Smetton was promised J v 10 per cent, of what he could recover. W- * Intrepid Coinage. I The intrepid diver found the' vessel I ['";" lying across a sandbank. He was obliged to use a blasting charge to get at |..:'• the. hold, which was choked by wreckage. •' Going down- again after -the explosion, he ;• reached the hold, when the vessel suddenly broke in two, and the diver sank to the bottom of 140 feet of water, a depth it-' at which a diver can ordinarily work for -only six minutes at a time, owing to the ;'*:■ pressure. fey',"-* 'As he fell a piece of timber fell upon \, Mm, broke his lifeline, and rendered him W. unconscious. He lay for over an hour at [i the bottom before his companions managed ft.' to rescue him. Yet. not in the least 1 daunted by this awful experience, he went

down again the very next day, and eventually recovered £80,000. When paid his share he abandoned his work, and in the quietude of a rural life enjoyed the fruits of his daring exploit. : Another notable feat .was accomplished by Alexander Lambert, -who made £4000 by his work on the Spanish mail steamer Alphonso XII., which sank with £100,000 of treasure off Point Cando, Grand Canary. He and two others brought up £70,000. The treasure lay in a room about 160 feet below the surface. Confronted with enormous difficulties, Lambert had to work long and hard before he : got both scuttles open, and ma*de his way into the magazine. The operations were persevered in for six months, box alter box of specie being safely sent up, and testifying more than anything else to the splendid success of a job which is still . reckoned as something unprecedented in the history of salvage. . The perilous nature of the diver's vocation was also strikingly illustrated in the case of the wrecked Vanguard, which . went down in the Irish Channel in 1875. It was ultimately destroyed by dynamite, • but not until many gallant attempts had been made to salve her. The divers who undertook the work did so for £7 a day. but the current was so powerful they had to cling to the rigging for safety. Two wen, named'Jngledon and Rowe, narrowly escaped with their lives. The former slipped on the Vanguard's bridge, and fell to the deck, but after two hours of seeming lifelessness he recovered. Rowe, rendered unconscious by a too rapid descent, became entangled in some rigging but, although much exhausted when pulled .Out, soon came round. Better luck attended the salving of the ! ■Camilla Mitchell, which was wrecked off /.Shanghai, having a heavy cargo, and «pecie to the amount- of £50,000 on board. It was lying in a peculiarly dangerous ration, and in water to the depth of about 160 feet. Lloyd's agent, who was 'instructed by the underwriters to visit the j Ktne of -the wreck, reported that it was impossible to do anything with it. pin. spite of this discouraging report, Uptain Lodge undertook the job, and for this purpose engaged two noted divers named Ridyard and Peuk, from Liverpool. ; ■iremendouf, indeed were the obstacles *nich they had to overcome, but with * ' pluck and determination beyond all praise the men held grimly «> their work, and eventually (but for the interference of piratical junks) would have "covered the whole of the treasure. As "' was thov recovered £40,000, and the remainder, £10,000, was brought up at »later date. fat

The diver had need) to be a man of iron |'«rve, superb constitution, and exhaust- *?■ resource, and it is to the combination « these qualities that bo many extraordin- ■ WJ.deeds stand to his credit. His rein the domain of salvage engineering :•■« one 0 { which he has reason to be •Pecially proud, for more than one ; lif*** ship as received a new lease of ~."!«: from the dauntless individual whose .jMkshop " the ocean deep. The Philain -v 4IS a case ' n P oint — a fi' lo upstand°B boat yet, and which once, as the roowhip Paris, held the speed record t0 * the> Atlantic. ;..'.'?.!>',- A Sporting Effort. aJwy will remember how one dark - : . Wt she- ran upon the dreaded Manacles; J~j*...ky there in an apparently hopeless jwiion, with great rocks piercing her ill ♦ bottom. A German firm undertook ..^•: -«sk of salving her on the "no cure £!'?"¥." principle. If floated they were, i'■ JL ," eve ' to have half tho value of the .> IS*''! It was a meet successful gamble '••■. ,f\«M- salving firm, but great credit must ' ; 2Sd to them for the skill which they #%■

In a few weeks divers had blown away the rocks and patched every hole, and then the water was pumped out, big tugs laid hold of her, and presently she was hauled out of her rocky bed and towed safely into Falmouth Harbour. It is said that the cost of the salving operations was less than £4500. As the value of the liner was certainly not less than £150,000, the profits from the job are easily reckoned.

What was referred to at the time by the chairman, of the' Liverpool Salvage Association as "a record in salvage work,"" was the case of the steamer Veronese,

which, with a valuable cargo, sank with a hole in her bow. The question was whether • the old method of discharging the cargo and -patching the vessel from the inside would have to be adopted or whether it could be avoided. It was decided to repair the damage under water, utilising pneumatic tools, which have come into use within the last few years.

Divers took the measure of the damage, and a steel patch was . made on board the salvage steamer.. Working .on a platform 28 feet below water, divers drilled the necessary holes in the ship. Tho plate was then sent down and fixed - at once by patent bolts invented by the association's surveyor. The cargo was not disturbed, and the ship was brought back to Liverpool through the Bay of Biscay, in variable weather, without starting . a leak. • ■ •..■••-» An Ingenious System, A few years ago underwriters at Lloyd's were very much interested in a new method of refloating sunken ships, and which, it was believed, would revolutionise salvage work.. The. idea was conceived from the " compressed air" method of building piers below the water . line. The vessel to be worked upon has all her upper works made perfectly tight, and then air, under great pressure, is forced into the holde. By this means the water is gradually driven out at leaky holes, and the vessel, thus being artificially and temporarily lighter than water, rises to tho surface. /

The new process was first successfully adopted with the Allan Liner Bavarian, a vessel of 10,387 tons burden, worth £130,000, and which was wrecked in the St. Lawrence River at the . beginning of November, 1905.. For many months underwriters had employed every known salvage process, but in vain. The pontoon method had been tried for weeks to-

gether • without success. Lighters and chains had been used, but had quite failed, and the stowing of-empty air chambers in the holds had also been tried without effect, until underwriters had at length abandoned hope, and bad settled a total loss upon her.

Then the discoverers of the new salvage method asked to be allowed to work upon the Bavarian, and at the expenditure of only £6000 she was safely brought off, after lying stranded on the rocks in the St. Lawrence for more than a year.