SEARCH FOR GOLD.

Thames Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 17662, 13 August 1929, Page 6

SEARCH FOR GOLD.

LIFTING LINED BV MAGNETS.

The first ste]) in one of the most during salvage operations 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 £839,000 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 ,8000-tons ,P. and O. liner Egypt sank in l the Bay of Biscay with the loss of 87 lives, after colliding with the French steamer Seine; The wreck lies in water IJGOft deep. dynamite charges. It has been decided that the only way to reach the liner's treasure room is to dynamite right through the wreck. The men who 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 20ft in front of them. The 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 by a German submarine in 240 ft of water off Bell Isle, on the Breton Coast, with 13.000 carats of diamonds, worth £3.000.000 on board.