Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 224, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 September 1911 — TANGLE OF THE MAINE IS APPALLING [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

TANGLE OF THE MAINE IS APPALLING

TIE work of raising the Maine fn Havana harbor is not more Than half finished. While reports have been sent out from time to time fixing the date for the final raising of tile derelict, not One of such reports has been authorized, not one of them is or can be reliable. It was stated nearly a year ago that the ship would be raised by February L 1911. Today the greater part of the ship is buried in sticky, black mud and there Is every possibility that six months will lapse, If not a much longer time, before the hull is fully exposed and raised, If it is ever found possible to float any part of it. And no one is to blame for the delay. The job has proved itself just about ten times, greater and more formidable than it originally, gave promise of being. - ; 7’

/Ship a Mass of Twisted Steel. No one who has not seen the wreck and been on it and through it can understand its almost impossibly tangled condition. The stern of the ship, is comparatively Intact But not more than a third of what was the original vessel is recognizable* as such. Axnidshlp the tangle begins. Funnels, conning towers, decks, cabins, engines, machinery, are all a tangled pathetic mass that even the most expert of naval engineers and constructors have been unable to classify properly. The Whole bow was blown off and turned around and pointed back toward the stern. The old controversy of what caused the explosion is still on, but experts declare the uncovering of the Maine will never solve the mystery. The titanic force of the explosion —or explosions, for there were two of them without question—impresses the observer as having been appalling. Think of a force that would break a steel. battleship in twain and dance the half of it about like a cork.

The old controversy as to whether the Maine was blown up from without or within will not be settled by the uncovering of the Vyeck— not If a million experts render their “Indisputable" opinions. -The consensus of opinion Is now, as it ever was, that an outside mine explosion preceded and precipitated the Interior explosion —that of the ship’s magazine. All testimony goes to establish the fact that there were two distinct explosions. But the Spanish folk will never admit that there were two. Those who even Incline to listen to the suggestion that there might have been two contend that if two occurred that within the ship must have been the first. Some, but not many, Americans hold to the opinion that the wreck was caused solely by an explosion of the vessel’s'magazine. Lends Color to Theory. But the fact that the destruction of the vessel celebrated on Calle Cuba. In Havana, before it occurred, and that that celebration was participated tn by Spanish royalists, has a decided tendency to lend color to the theory that the wreck was planned. Lurid stories of all sorts to "new discoveries" which are calculated to "clear up the mystery” are on constant, dally tap in Havana. Within a week a circumstantial yarn to the effect that a wire cable leading from the bow of the Maine to Cabanas had been discovered went the rounds. AU such stories are myths. But the Impressiveness, the wierdness, the creepiness, the oppressive uncannlnes of the wreck itself Is by no means mythical. It gets on one’s. nerves. Eighty-eight men perished when the Maine went down. About 25 akelettons or parts of skeletons have ' been recovered. As this Is written three skulls gleam their ghastly welcome from the slime that covers the tangled wreckage. The

bodies cannot be reached until the tons of twisted metal that He upon them are cut away and removed. Here a tnlgh bone, there a rib, over yonder part of a hand—these are the grewsome finds that the workmen make every day. Although the explosion occurred in February—over 13 years ago, by the way—the night was hot and many of the crew slept out on the port side of the berth deck. Most of the bodies recovered have been from this part of the ship. Down in the engine room—when that is reached—from 25 to 30 bodies probably will be foundbodies of the poor devils who worked down below the water line and who hadn’t a condemned man’s chance to get away. In the Captain’s cabin and fn the other quarters that have been uncovered and mud-relieved, articles of various sorts in most remarkable preservation have been found. The most striking thing in this line is a box of rubber bands in a perfect state of elasticity and preservation. ’ Their immersion in the intensely salt waters of Havana harbor appears to have improved them, if anything. Bite of leather swotd hilts, shoes, caps have come out practically uninjured. All metals, however, show the effect of the Immersion.

There is, roughly, 25 feet of mud to take out yet before the Maine can be “raised.” The piling that forms the exterior of each of the caissons composing the cofferdam is 50 feet long. Between 25 and 30 feet of water was pumped out There is nothing but mud remaining. But it is glue-like mud and is 10 times harder to get rid of than the water was. Hydraulic pumps have been Installed, but the work put upon them is so unusual that they haven’t been successful as yet

Oxygen-acetyllne apparatus has been used to separate—“cut up"—the steel and iron of the ship where it was necessary to remove those tangled portions hampering the further work of excavation. This apparatus resembles, in a way,-a plumber’s blow lamp. Ohly the .intense heat cuts through metal as a knife - would through butter. A five-inch square piece of steel was seen severed so quickly that the operadbn appeared to be almost magical. The method of cutting away the opposing metal parts will be continued until the wreck is entirely removed.

Incrusted With Oysters. The whole part of the ship so far exposed is incrusted with oysters and barnacles —mostly oysters. Hundreds of thousands of the bivalves have attached themselves to the hulk. The incrustations appearing in the picture are all oysters. When the water was being removed from the cofferdam thousands of fish and eels splashed and struggled in the Inclosure. There were many of the several hundred workmen employed by Major Ferguson who took home strings of fish every night when they quit work Now, of course, there is nothing but slimy mud within the inclosure. The work of constructing the cofferdam, and, in fact, practically all of the executive labor connected with the "raising,” has been conducted by Major Hartley B. Ferguson, .who Is one of the main board. Colonel William Black and Colonel Mason Patrick are the other two. The cofferdam has been repeatedly tested and in several places re-enforced, and, while it la the first one of the sort ever constructed, the complete success of it has marked a place in the history at engineering. But successful as the work has been remarkable, the cold fact probably Is not more than halt