HOW THE LUSITANIA WAS FOUND.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13167, 28 January 1936, Page 7

HOW THE LUSITANIA WAS FOUND.

In W ati.no; the wrec k of The IxSsirania- and sending a dmvn to her, th- salvage aft ip Orpfei-r successfully demonstrated the value in salvage work o i two remark aMe inventions, write a R. A. Mon son in the ' I >ai).y Telegraph.'' - One, the Hughes’ echo sounder, wa■« designed to do away with the ne-'e<sjty foT long dragging oyierai fcions* -i nd the othe r the Triton ia ! diving dress, or Iron Man—was to | enable a- diver to work in the deey*i est oceans. The echo sounder- an Admiralty patent- is a comparatively new invent ion, hut already it has been | widely and successfully used to chart j the sea Irotfoio and to locate wrecks, ; shoals of fish, and other subma-rine Chieflv, the echo sounder employs sound waves to draw on a tape ' the pic-tor*- of the sea bed, to show its depth, to indicate anything lying on the bottom or between the bot- : tor and the surface of the sea. It will accurately give the extent of the object, he >t a- wreck, rock, bank, shoal of fish, or oven a smj/fe whale. From the hoII of the searching ship an apparatus gives out a loud sound four times every second, the s-ound travels to the sea bed and is reflected as an ec ho. 7he receive r on the searching ship picks up the ‘ e-bo. and this c-a users an eJeotr ica I impulse to flow through the- stylus of the apparatus. The stylus is rnovin g back and forth across a. c heroically treafed paper tape,' five inches m width, that is slowly unrolling -from the Hifu-knc I’nc stylus wifi not mark the : t-n pc ’ ' unless a c urrent is flowing through it The instant the f 'hr, i C'turns and releases the- currrfit, a brown mark is made cm the tape ’ 7

The .speed of sound in salt wjrfcor is knc.wri, a net so the time taken by scvnncl tc> travel to the sea. bottom <c>r to any intervening object such as a. wreck) and for its echo to return to the apparatus can be. translated into feet and shown cm the scale. ff the-, sound strikes an object, at a lesser depth than the sea. bottom the echo returns so much sooner, and the stylus commences making its mark proportiona t.ely sooner, ft is, in fact, drawing the foreign object on the chart—and drawing »t to scaled The. distance-, travelled by the searching; ship while actually over the- object can 1*- observed, and this is the length of the object. None of us aboard the fJrpbir will ever forget the thrill of the moment when, standing on the- ship s bridge, scanning the • tape” unrolling from the sounder, w o saw the- outline of the-. f,usit.ania suddenly cornrne-no.e. to take form. We were in fifty fathoms. The se>abed, as shown on our 'tape/ 1 had remained constant at that depth all the- morning. Then the- great outline of some- object showed up on the chart, rising Writ, from the- sea Eyeyttom. VVe travailed a measure?cl distance- of *<)o fea*t over it before out cu.it! ine- faded. We knew We had passed over a wreck ”b-e*t in length and W/ fe-*-t in be-ight We c hec ke-d curt distance** and measure memts twenty time < VVe-kne-w the-n it was the* lUTsita nia we* had f(t \nfl Diver Tarratt. in the* lrc>ri Man walkeal upon the- hull. N c*x t te-ar a diver will descend to the* wreck and clirect salvage* opera-, t.ions.