Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 164, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 July 1913 — GOLD FROM THE SEA [ARTICLE]

GOLD FROM THE SEA

Two Problems Confronting Ocean’s Treasure Seekers. Air Pressure and Light—What Is Requisite for Diver In Exploring Depths Greater than a Hundred Feet. ' New York.—Hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of gold, silver, copper and precious stones are lying on the bottom of the sea, ready to the hand of the first person who will devise means of recovering them. Inventors in every part of the world are building submarine boats, diving armor, dredging apparatus and other devices, Bolely for the purpose of finding and bringing to the surface these sunken treasures. The two main problems to be solved are those of protection against water pressure and providing light in which to work. The latter problem is more easily solved than the former. Modern developments In electric lighting make It practically certain that powerful searchlights can be devised which will give sufficient illumination for salvage operations at depths as great as 400 feet. Divers who have been down 150 feet agree that even when the sun is shining brightly the ocean depths are in semidarkness, VhiCh increases as one descends. The other and more serious problem Is that of pressure. The-ordinary diver’s equipment depends upon a constant supply of air pumped in from above, and a rubber suit with a metal helmet, all air-tight, or nearly so, to keep the water from rushing in the minute the pressure of air pumped through the hose becomes less than the water pressure from outside. Theoretically, of course, the air pressure could be maintained at a point that would equalize the water pressure, but what would become of the diver? Men working In compresed air caissons under a presure of 45 i pounds to the square Inch are risking their lives, and 45 pounds.means only a depth of 104 feet of water. At 200 feet the water pressure is a little over ,86*4 pounds to the square Inch; at 250 feet it Is over 108 pounds; at 300 feet it is 130 pounds, and many of the sunken treasures lie at even greater depths.

Very few divers have descended as deep as 100 feet One adventurous young man went down 196 feet In Puget sound, but on a second attempt his helmet was crushed by the 86 pound water pressure and he was hauled up dead. Two English naval officers are said to have desoended 210 feet, but could remain at that depth only a few seconds. The problem of getting down to the deep-lying treasure ships, therefore, is essentially one of constructing mechanism sufficiently rigid to withstand the terrific water pressure. It must carry its own supply of oxygen, since any sort of flexible air tube would be crushed flat long before a depth of 400 feet is reached, and it must be so constructed that the diver inside It can accomplish something after he reaches the wreck, even If be can do nothing more than attach a grappling hook to a copper Ingot.

The encouragement for inventors working along these lines is found In the knowledge already at hand of wrecks bearing treasure, some of which have been sunk for hundreds of years. In 1502 a Bpanish fleet carrying quantities of gold from Santo Domingo sank off the Island of Santa Lucia at an unknown depth In a hurricane that drove the ships of Christopher Columbus Into a nearby harbor for sarety. From then on. for two centuries th* record of the Spanish conquest of America is filled with reports of sunken treasure ships bearing the riches of Peru and Mexico back to Spain.

Probably no diver will ever reach the wreck of the Titanic, which lies two miles deep in mid-Atlantic, where the water pressure reaches the tremendous force of 4,674 pounds to the square Inch, but It is easily possible that some of the Inventors now working on the .main problems Involved will reap Incalculable riches from wrecks yet to be discovered at depths of a thousand feet or more.