Evening Star Newspaper, October 12, 1930, Page 89

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C.,., OCTOBER 12, 1930. = Prying Open Davy Jones’ Locker Golden Doubloons, Pieces of Eight and Bullion Lost on Foundering Vessels in Recent Years May Be Recovered If Methods Used to Salvage Egypt’s Treasure Prove Successful. BY ROBERT McQUAID. WEIRD Frankenstein in steel, with a Cyclopian tal eye—an Italian diver in the latest of all-metal diving garb—hung suspended by a cable 70 fathoms deep in the Atlantic 25 miles southwest of Ushant Island, off Brest, France. Over the telephone came an excited voice: “Hold! I'm hanging by the taffrail of a big ship! No Spanish orange boat this—she has Ay, d modern rigid, all-metal diving suit, similar to that used by the Italian diver who recently stepped aboard the Egypt, 70 fathoms below the surface. three decks—seven hydraulic hoists—two fun- nels, water tanks and ventilators to match the map—it's the Egypt!” Thus recently did Alberio Bargellini of a Genoa salvage company locate and identify the sunken hulk of the Peninsular & Oriental liner off Cape Pinisterre; thus did science, long deemed a destroyer of the romantie, reveal itself in a far different guise. Throughout the world, those who thrilied to the adventures of Steven- son’s Jim Hawkins and characters in a thousand other tales of gallant adventure bravely met in the quest of wealth long hidden in Davy Jones’ Jocker await with interest resumption next year of the Egypt salvage project. If the Genoans are successful off Ushant, what poscibilities their venture opens! What treasures may be raised from hundreds of ves- sels whose rusting bones, deep beneath the waves of the Atlantic, Mediterranean and North Seas, testify to the efficiency of torpedoes in the hands of meticulous German and Austrian sub- marine crews of the World War! What wealth may be brought up, salt encrusted, from the wrecks of pirate craft lying forgotten in harbors of the old Spanish Main! What riches may be wrested from barnacle-clad hulls that once were vessels of the Invineible Armada' latest ail-steel diving garb—a series of t metallic pleces incasing the diver from head %0 heel, making him impervious to pressure virtually at any depth, while arms and legs may move normally, thanks to ball bearings and universal joints—together with the new Brooks detector spear, have taken the ifs and buts from treasure recovery en the ocean floor, So successful has been the Genoa company with the new apparatus that the Institute Na- sionale of Italy has granted it a 10-year con- cession to delve into vessels insured by the in- stitute and sunk in the Mediterranean and Bay of Biscay during the World War, On the other side of the world, 300 feet below the surface of Stephen Passage and off the desolate Southeastern Alaska coast, Carl Wiley Just recovered a small portion of a treasure esti- mated at between $300,000 and $3,000,000 in ®old which has been submerged for 29 years. In 1991 the steamship Alaska ran into an ice- berg and sank when returning from the Alaskan gold fields. Many attempts have been made to salvage her great treasure, but the depth at which she rests and the strength of the current made all efforts futile until last month, when Wiley brought up a rotting buckskin pouch of the precious metal. Divers gained invaluable experience when the treasure of half a million dollars borne in the steamship Alfonso XII was lifted from the bot- tom in February, 1885, off the Canary Islands, but modern methods in treasure recovery from great depths date from operations off Fanad Light, at the mouth of Lough Swilly, Northern Ireland—operations which, during the Summer months between 1918 and 1926, brought about almost compléte recovery of the $40,000,000 treasure carried down in the shattered hulk of the Laurentic. This British auxiliary cruiser, once a popular White Star liner plying between Liverpool and Quebec, went down in January, 1917. In her strongrooms were 2,875 ingots of gold, worth $35,000,000, and $5,000,000 in silver specie con- signed to American bankers in connection with British war loans. Whether she struck a mine or was torpedoed has not been determined. Her captain, R. A. Norton, testified there were two terrific explosions. She was torn almost in half, sinking immediately, with the loss of 350 lives. In 1918, with the war still raging and menace of submarines ever present, the British admi- ralty began salvage operations. In that first season 608 bars of gold were Yecovered, but, dif- ficulties had become enormous. The hull had crumbled to a twisted jumble of beams and shattered plates. The swift current in that place had scattered the wreckage over a wide area. Salvage men were on the point of aban- doning effort when Prof. F. F. Brooks, English university man, approached the admiralty with what has since come to be known as the Brooks detector spear. A simple thing it is—a long rod to which are attached wires leading from the diver to a galvanometer on the salvage vessel's deck—but a sure-fire treasure finder. Prodded about in the muck of the sea bed, its needle turns- left when approaching base metals, but whirls right in proximity to gold! The device trebled the efficiency of the Laurentic diving operations. When work finally was abandoned, scarcely 50 ingots remained unrecovered. Divers working on the hulk of the Laurentic had to combat a millrace current, but operated at a depth of only 90 feet. Quite different is the situation of the Italians endeavoring to recover the sunken Egypt's wealth, for the P. & O. liner, sunk May 20, 1922, in collision with the French freighter Seine, lies 450 feet beneath the surface. Ordinary diving gear was useless. The pressure at that depth approximates that of the Salvaging has become a scientific engineering feat, as is shown The real work of recovering sunken treasure comes after the ill-fated ship is lo- cated, when divers beg the interior of the vessel, by the recent lifting of this 150-ton lightship from the sea bottom off Liverpool, England. in cutting through steel plates or blasting their way inte interior of a locomotive boiler, Added to this, the depth causes poor visibility. = Divers peering from the glass ports of their pressure-resisting suits can see only 3 feet before them. Lloyds’ records show that when the Egypt went down amid-wild scenes occasioned by mu- tiny of her Lascar crew and death by drowning of 100 of her company she carried gold worth $4,195,000 and silver bullion worth $1,075,000. Since the sinking silver has depreciated mark- edly, but it is estimated the value of jewelry and gems in the purser’s room would bring the total to something above $5,000,000—a treasure worth retrieving. The 8,000-ton Egypt, it has been found, like the Alfonso XII of the Canaries, sits upright on the bottom, surrounded by trailing seaweed and covered from stem to stern by a brown in- crustation of marine vegetation. To clear a path for winches to her strongroom three decks —boat, hurricane and spar—must be blasted through. Already divers have recovered sufficient from the Egypt’s hull to make nearly certain eventual recovery of the entire treasure. With the wresting from the ocean of the Egypt's wealth, what will be the next step? Perhaps location and plunder of the rich-laden Drummond Castle, sunk in 1896, which lies somewhere nearby. Perhaps it will be the Lusitania, whose hulk lies 10 miles off Kinsale Head, Ireland, at a depth of 285 feet, reputed to have hidden in her strong boxes five millions in gold and ane other million in jewelry and gems when sent to the bottom by a submarine. Perhaps the next operation will be location of the Arabic, 40 miles east of the Lustiania, which bore five mil- lions in gold. THERE are other alluring hulks; the Yasaka Maru, a Japanese Bteamship sunk in 1919 in the Mediterranean with a hoard of $12,000,000 in gold; the Geelong, foundered in the Medi~ terranean with the Maharajah of Kapurthala's jewels, worth $4,000,000; the Black Prince, sunk in 1854 in Balaklava Bay with two and one= half millions of British gold in her hold. Unquestionably, a day will come when divers equipped with the new pressure-resisting suits and the detector spear, will tread the bottom of Vigo Bay, at the northwest tip of Spain, for here, now probably buried beneath shifting sands, lies the greatest hoard in “drowned wealth” known to the world, the cargo of the Pranco-Spanish plate fleet. Along the American continents are sunkesj treasure ships which, in the value of their bar- nacle-incrusted cargoes, compare quite favorably vlul: those of the Egypt, the Lusitania and Geelong. 3