OCEAN GOLD SEARCH

Taranaki Daily News, 23 July 1929, Page 9

OCEAN GOLD SEARCH

GREAT SALVAGE SCHEME. LINER'S RICH TREASURY. The first step in one of the most daring salvage operation ever undertaken began recently,-when the Italian salvage'tugs Artiglio and Rostro mapped out with buoys an area of the ocean from which they hope to recover 1839,000 in gold bars and £230,000 in silver ingots. This bullion, which was consigned to the Egyptian Treasury, went to the bottom on May 20, 1922, when the 8000ton P. and O. liner Egypt sank in the Bay of Biscay, with tho loss of 87 lives, after colliding with tho French steamer Seine, The wreck lies in water 360 feet deep. Remarkable details have been obtained of the manner in which it is proposed to recover the sunken fortune —a task worthy of the imagination of a Jules Verne.

It has been decided that the only way to reach the liner’s treasure room is to dynamite right through the wreck. The men w’ho will place the charges and carry out this delicate work are Genoese divers, renowned for their physical endurance.

As soon as they have definitely identified the Egypt, six great caissons will be moored above and the Artiglio and Rostro made fast to them.

The next step will be the shattering of the wreck with the dynamite charges, after which the sections of the ship will be brought to the surface by means of immensely powerful magnets, which will pick them up from the sea bottom. The divers will use 20,000 candlepower electric lamps, which, despite the great depth, will light up the ocean bed for 20 feet in front of them.

Tho engineers and divers, who are supported by British engineers and advisers, are confident of success. If their confidence proves justified they will proceed subsequently to the wreck of the Belgian liner Elizabethville, which was torpedoed by a German submarine in 240 feet of water off Bell Isle, on the Breton coast, with 13,000 carats of diamonds, worth £3,000,000, on board.