Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 102, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 April 1914 — Page 2

HOLES to RAISE the TITANIC

Can the Titanic be raised? The question has been asked more than once since the ship sank two years ago. Nearly every time the subject has been broached some one has come forward with an array of figures that apparently placed the project in the realm of

the impossible. Of late the idea has been revived, and now comes an engineer with a scheme that can boast an element of the probable, provided the circumstances are quite as favorable as he imagined them to be. Paradoxically, the man that offers the present solution has his home pretty nearly as far away from the sea as it is possible to get here in the United States. Charles A. Smith, the author of the plan, lives in Denver, says the New York Sun. Briefly it is his purpose to make use of a great many powerful electric lifting magnets, which when energized will cling to the steel body of the Titanic like so many monster leeches. When these magnets are firmly attached to the skin of the ship lines leading surfaceward will be secured to buoyant caissons, or camels, of steel built especially for the purpose, and then the inventor counts upon the cumulative lifting force of all these cylindrical tanks to raise the Titanic clear of the bottom so that the wreck and the floating camels can be towed into shallower water. Each time the Titanic is halted by the rising sea bed the connecting lines will be shortened, the vessel raised a few feet, and with this clearance she will be towed nearer land. Thus step by step the foundered ship is to be raised and moved shoreward until the next to the last stage of the operations finds her in water of such moderate depth that the ordinary diver can be employed. This would involve bringing the Titanic from her present supposed restling place, two miles down below the surface of the sea, and transporting her to some point near the Nova Scotian coast. Where a temporary resting place could be found at a depth of not more than 100 feet.

Bat great physical obstacles lie In jthe path of Mr. Smith’s project. To begin with, it would take an immense amount of hunting to locate the wreck. (Wrecks have a way of shifting even after they reach the ocean bed, and Ithls is one of the puzzling aspects of la submarine problem of this sort ; Take your atlas and trace the course of the Gulf Stream as It branches just about where the White IBtar liner collided with that deathjdeallng iceberg. You will find that (this current of warm water sweeps at that point off to the southeast, and somewhere below the Gulf Stream the great volume of the Labrador Current flows to the south and west, bringing with it an unceasing burden of sand. In this fashion both of these ocean rivers have carried sand to the point where they meet in conflict south of Newfoundland, and thus out of this battle has grown that steadily rising submarine mountain or plateau > called the Grand Bank. It is possible that the Gulf Stream and the Labrador Current have in the past two years substantially buried the wreck of the Titanic. If such be the case, the hulk may never be located. Again, it is not certain that the Titanic lies on a sandy bottom. There Is a reasonable probability that the ocean bed at that point may be rocky. This brings us to the question of her iprobable condition as a likely subject tor salvage, assuming that it be humanly possible to get down to her and to attach lines or cables for her lifting. The question is, so far as the salver is concerned, Which of these ways was the one in which the Titanic was finally halted at the bottom of the Atlantic? If she lies upon a rocky bed, then, if Mr. Smith can secure his magnets to her and command sufficient lifting force, the chance of her ultimate recovery brightens Considerably. On the other hand, if the ship has forced a goodly part of her body into the sea bed the situation is entirely changed. There is no reasonable hope of dislodging her from that anchorage. The Titanic, like her sister ship, the Olympic, measured upon her longest deck, 882 feet and her beam was 92 feet A rectangle of these dimensions would have a total area of 81,144 square feet Of course, a plan view of the Titanic’s body was ship shaped and not rectangular, and let us suppose that a goodly part of it is burled bow first in the sand,,and that only 60 per cent rises above the bottom. In that case approximately 7,000,000 square inches would be exposed to the downward thrust of the overlying two miles of sea water. At a depth of 10,500 feet there is a hydrostatic pressure tending to crush or to hold amounting to a force of 4,540 pounds to every superficial

DREW KNIVES OVER AUTHORS

New York Boys In Duel Over Respective Merits of Dickens and Mark Twain. Any juvenile stabbing affray Is regretable. but the encounter between New York schoolboys In which one resorted to the knife to prove Dickens •jWM “a better author" than Mark Twain, had aspects that distinguish It from the ordinary boyish brawl. » Burely, if boys are to quarrel, there

square inch. If you multiply the 7,0W,000 square Inches by this pressure and divide by 2,240 representing -the pounds of a long ton —yolT will find that the superposed sea has laid its hand upon the body of the Titanic with weight of more than 14,000,000 tons. , . When afloat and fully laden the great liner represented a dead weight of 65,000 tons. If she be held in the grip of the ocean bed, with the sea further aiding that hold, the a salver would have to exert a lifting force of more than 215 times her service tonnage in order to free her from the bottom. In other words, Mr. Smith would have to provide salvage caissons or camels with an amassed buoyancy equivalent to an assembled fleet of floating Titanlcs more than 215 strong! From a financial and engineering point of view an undertaking of this sort would not be alluring. But it may be that the wreck of the ship is not in this unpromising predicament. How Is the Denver inventor to satisfy himself upon this point? Mr. Smith has planned as an auxiliary a type of submarine boat which is to be strong enough to withstand the deepest submergence required for the reaching of the Titanic wreck. In this direction the Inventor is practically elaborating on the work of the noted Italian submarine engineer, Signor Pino.

The latter designed a type of globular submarine, which, because of its particular form and the nature of its fabrication, would stand up under the crushing stresses of very deep submergence. In fact, the boat —if such it could strictly be called —was so arranged that increasing pressure actually served to make the craft more watertight. According to Mr. Smith’s plan, these submarine auxiliaries, will be lowered from big wrecking steamers and will obtain their limited propulsive energy from the electric power plant of the surface craft. Their purpose will be two fold: That of locating and exploring externally the shattered wreck, and to assist in guiding and in pushing the powerful -magnets into contact with the steel hull. It would be of the utmost Importance to place these mechanical leeches where the internal structure of the Titanic would be best able to support the lifting strains.

Lifting magnets are extensively employed nowadays in big steel plants, and lately have been used also for the recovery or iron and steel scrap which has been lost overboard in harbors. A well known English firm has built some of these with a diameter of five feet and with a magnetic grip strong enough to raise a solid mass of iron or steel weighing 12 tons.

One of the main difficulties in the use of magnets is to avoid overheating them by reason of the electrical current turned into them. This element of temperature has hitherto placed limits upon their attractive powers,, and especially upon prolonged continuous service, something that would be absolutely needful in dealing with such a project as the lifting of the Titanic and holding her during the towing into shallower water. However, news has come from Paris of late announcing an Important discovery in this matter of increasing the strength of magnets without adding materially to their size.

Unquestionably the temperature of the sea water where the Titanic now lies is very close to the freezing point, and it may be that the Denver engineer counts upon this condition to promote the efficiency of his magnets when first gripping the wreck and starting it surfaceward. As the matter stands, however, the present state of the art calls for a magnet weighing about sixty-eight hundredweight to lift a burden of 12 tons. If the Titanic broke just forward of the_bridge, and if the after section represents twothirds of her total weight, then the load to be lifted would be equivalent to something over 43,000 tons were the vessel afloat. The buoyancy of the

is some encouragement in the fact that they should quarrel over a question of culture and not of craps. And is the use of a knife to demonstrate the superior merits of Dickens essentially different from the French method of settling literary -arguments on the dueling ground ? As a matter of fact, long and cost?, ly wars have been waged and whole populations massacred over disputed questions of no greater importance to the world. The boys who fought over the rival claims of Tom Sawyer and

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND.

sea would cut down the load to be lifted to approximately 39,000 tons, which would call for 3,250 electro magnets, representing a dead weight in themselves of fully 10,000 tons. That is to say, that the special pdntoons, or camels, must be equal to providing a total buoyancy of a good deal more than 49,000 tons, because the magnets must be suspended by chains or wire ropes, and here again is an additional load. If you are fond of figures you can while away your time calculating the number and the size of the caissons which Mr. Smith would have to use under the most favorable circumstances, and when that conclusion has been reached you will find some difficulty in getting anchorage space for the necessary fleet In New York harbor. If you are at all familiar with the practical difficulties of towing you will realize what It would mean to convoy these squadrons to the site of the wreck, and when you have got them there and have crowded them over the Titanic’s hulk, Imagine what would happen If a storm arose! It will be seen, therefore, that Mr. Smith has many difficulties to overcome. Even if it were possible to recover the whole or any part of the hulk it is hard to conceive how the salvers would have anything but an irreparably damaged mass. Remember that if aqy air pockets or chambers filled with air survived for a while during the vessel’s sinking, they ultimately were burst in by the Increasing hydrostatic pressure as the craft plunged deeper and deeper to her grave. Probably this happened in a large number of directions, and thus successively the ship’s steel honeycomb was ruptured if not flattened into a veritable pancake. Of course, Mr. Smith may have ap answer for every point raised; but even so the salvage of the Titanic would in no wise pay for thfe labor and the enormous expense Involved. True, an achievement of this sort would be of the utmost engineering significance, Inasmuch as it would herald the feasibility of dealing with treasure ships and other profitable wrecks that lie in shallower water. If Mr. Smith can do this latter work he will do something well worth while.

DESTITUTE IN NEW YORK CITY

There Has Been a Big Increase During Recent Months In Demands for Charity.

There is more poverty and destitution in New York now than in the last 40 years, according to reports received by the Charity Organization society, says the New York World. Never before in its history has the society been called upon to help so many families. A few days ago It had 2,781 families in its care, an Increase of 548 over the same seasonjast year. During February, 1914, it helped 3,313 families, an increase of 642 over February, 1912. “Each month since last October,” said W. Frank Persons, director of the society’s general work, “we have cared for 25 to 30 per cent more families than the year before. The snowstorm has brought us families who ordinarily would not have to ask for help. They have been able to withstand hard times for weeks, but the pressure now has become too great. "We expect to have for the next month an increasing number of such families as apply for aid. Indications are that there will be much suffering from throat and lung diseases, as is always the case when the snow begins to melt. TJjls will affect day laborers, drivers and men in other outdoor oc.cupations.”

The Splendid Paupers.

First Turkish Official (presented with a photograph of the new Turkish navy in lieu of six months’ deferred pay)—So we’ve got a dreadnaught, have we? - Second Turkish Official—l don’t know who gets the dread, but I know we’ve got the naught.—Punch.

Little Nell only did In a rude way what organized society has been do* ing since the birth of civilization. - Altogether this encounter of street boys over a disputed point of literature may be taken as hopefully illustrating the seriousness of the juvenile pursuit of culture. They are the stuff of which great cities are made, and lx is satisfactory to know that the potential supply exists.

The dead past buries its dead. Ths future will beUeve in cremation,

SOUPS AND CHOWDER

SHOULD FIGURE FREQUENTLY ON HOUSEHOLD MENU.

May or May Not Be Substantial, as One Desires, but Are Practically Essential—Corn Chowder Splendid Luncheon Dish.

Soups made with herbs and vegetables to be used on fast daye are very numerous. Some of them are created* for novelty, some for very simple light form of diet, merely a hot beverage suitable for very cold weather, or cold in summer time, like the Russian or German beer soups. Then there are other soups or purees made entirely of vegetables and herbs which are substantial enough to replace meat dishes as they give a considerable amount of nitrogenous food when they are properly compounded. But the names of these soups do not; designate them as belonging to anyi special time or Season. Here are threo of the best: Corn Chowder— Chowders make most satisfying and nourishing luncheon dishes, and several are made without meat extractives of any kind. For corn chowder take a quart of grated fine corn; ordinary canned sweet corn may be used, but first put through a food chopper; also a white onion chopped fine, two good-sized white potatoes, diced; a tablespoonful of minced parsley, salt and pepper. Put the potatoes in first; then a sprinkling of onion, a little parsley, salt, pepper, and then a layer of corn. Then more potato, and so on, until all are In, having the top layer of corn. Add a pint of cold water and simmer gently until the potato is just tender, but not, broken. About twenty minutes will be sufficient, perhaps less. Rub together two tablespoonfuls of butter and two' of flour; add beaten egg yolk and thin | with a little hot milk; then add a pint of scalded hot milk; stir all to-' gether and stir into the chowder. | Stir and cook a few minutes longer: and serve at once. If you do not wish: to use the egg, the chowder is excel-' lent without it. Convent Soup—Take two pounds ofi fresh flounder, or any white fish; cut in pieces; one carrot, one onion, one turnip, two stalks of celery, chopped. Add a bunch of herbs and a quart of cold water, and cook gently for about two hours. Take out the fish, remove the bones and skin and put the meat back into the soup with a pint of scalding hot milk, thickened with a level tablespoonful each of butter and flour and mixed with the beaten yolk of an egg and a little lemon juice. Season to taste with salt, pepper and grating of nutmeg. Press through a sieve and serve.

Good Vegetable Soup—Cut into fancy shapes or chop fine one small carrot, one turnip, one tomato (the solid meat of canned tomatoes can be used); add half a pint of peas, half a pint of beans, soaked and parboiled if dry; two tablespoonfuls of rice, one quart of cold soft water, and cook slowly. A cupful of corn and two white potatoes, diced, may be added when the soup is nearly done. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Another quart of boiling water will be required. The rice may be boiled separately in this water and both added to the eoup.

Cranberry Puffs.

Sift together two cupfuls sifted flour, four teaspoonfuls baking powder and one-half teaspoonful salt; rub onequarter cupful butter into the flour; beat three eggs until thick as cream; add one cupful of rich milk and stir into the flour with one pint of cranberries. Fill buttered cups half full of the mixture and steam closely, covered one hour. Serve with cranberry sauce. Sauce —Boil two cupfuls sugar,and one-half cupful water five minutes; add one cupful cranberry juice and boil again; if a thicker sauce is desired add a teaspoonful of cornstarch. Cook ten minutes, add teaspoonful butter and one tablespoonful lemon juice.

Parsnip Balls.

Mash one pint of boiled parsnips. Add two tablespoonfuls of butter, a half teaspoonful of salt, a little pepper and two tablespoonfuls of cream. Mix together and stir on the fire until the mixture bubbles. Remove from the fire and before it cools add one well beaten egg. When cold make into balls about half the size of an egg. Dip into beaten egg, then into bread crumbs. Use the frying basket for these balls and fry to a pale brown in boiling lard.

Apple Cream.

Peel and core tart apples; slice and weigh them, and to three pounds take one cupful of sugar; put in a granite kettle with the grated rind and the juice of one lemon; two cloves and one inch of stick cinnamon; Bimmer slowly until the apples are very, tender, then rub through a colander. Scald one pint of fresh cream, mix with it the apple pulp and serve cold.

Saving Money on Soap.

Never put a quantity of soap in the pantry—its odor is penetrating, and delicate articles take on the flavor. It is economy to get both laundry and toilet soap by the box and dry it thoroughly before using.

To Keep Yeast Fresh.

. Having discovered an excellent way to keep yeast cake fresh for a week I pass it on. Remove the tinfoil from the yeast, bury the cake in a salt and set li\ a cool place.—New York Press.

BIG GUNSTO PROTECT CANAL

ONE OF THE GUARDIANS

THE .military authorities of the United States have been busy for some months hastening the work of fortifying the two to the Panama canal. Once in a while the public has heard something of this, but as a rule the work has gone on rather quietly and it is only of late that some of the facts have leaked out regarding the scope and character of. the defenses which are being prepared.

• A little more than three years ago congress appropriated, nearly $20,000,000 for the fortification of the canal. So energetically has the undertaking been pushed since then-that before traffic passes through the waterway our coast artillery will be prepared there for any contingency. Out of the total appropriation about $2,500,000 has been apportioned to the guns and carriages for seacoast batteries. According to official figures the 16 inch gun is capable of hurling a projectile of 2,400 pounds a distance of 19,350 yards, and at a range of 2.8 miles that armor piercing shot- will be able to bore its way through 21 inches of steel. The projectile carries a destructive bursting charge of no less than 125 pounds of dunnite. The gun alone, when hung in the yoke of the disappearing carriage, will represent a suspended weight of 130 tons, and this will be augmented by the 2,400 pound projectile and the propulsive powder charge of 666 pounds. But this is only part of the story. Mortars to Cover Three Zones.

For indirect attack upon a foe-the seacoast defenses at Panama will rely mostly upon the new design of 12inch mortars. The very latest report of the chief of ordnance of the army says:

“A number of the more powerful 12inch mortars of new design referred to in my last annual report as being under manufacture tor the fortifications of the Panama canal have been completed and successfully tested. They will have a maximum range of slightly more than 11 miles, as compared with approximately eight and a half miles for the most powerful type previously in use.” In order to send these missiles upon their destructive mission the mortar can be elevated to an angle of 45 degrees. At this elevation the shell would soar skyward until it had reached the climax of its curving flight at a height of a little less than 6,000 yards and then would begin to drop toward the distant target, which is the deck or turret tops of the advancing ship. In this, you see, the army strategist counts upon hitting

the foe where he is weakest, for th? decks and turret tops are only thinly clad with protecting steel, These cannot be reached -by the direct and flatter fire of the guns, but can be attained by the plunging fire or the mortar shell. • The moment the powder is ignited and the generated" gases drive that great shell seaward there will be developed jvithln the weapon an impulsive energy amounting to more than 84,000 foot tons, that is, motive force equivalent to lifting more than 84,000 tons ohe foot in one second. There is no action without reaction, and in. this ease the recoil is equal to the driving energy hack of the shot, and all of this must be absorbed by the gun carriage so nicely and easily that the weapon shall sink without violent shock to the loading position with the muzzle again below the parapet This Is like bringing a racing express to a stop within the space of a few feet The weapons that will count most against a foe at Panama are the 14inch guns which the army has been developing during the last few years, and these are to measure st-ength with the best that a foreign naval power can offer - .

The 14-inch guns, built and building for Panama are of a superior type. These weapons weigh 137,300 pounds each, or a trifle over 61 tons —less than half that of the giant 16-inch gun. Nevertheless these newer weapons hurl; their 1,600 pound projectiles with suf-' ficient velocity to penetrate at 5,000 yards a matter of 18.1 inch of Krupp armor. This means that at that rangje the shot is traveling with a velocity of 1,960 feet a second. The pent up energy in the shell at. the instant it leaves the rifle amounts to the equivalent of a colliding force of 58,528 foot tons, and the disappearing carriages which bear these weapons must work smoothly and without injury when absorbing the recoiL involved. We stand alone practically in the possession of this sort of carriage for big guns. While some of th&e carriages have feet "the tests of the proving grounds none of them has been subjected at target practise to the tax of their service charges, and it is this latter which will represent what may be expected in time of actual battle. Only an Aeroplane Can See Them. Because of their particular manner of action the mortar does not now need a disappearing carriage. Groups of four of these weapons are placed' in sunken batteries technically termed mortar pits and the enemy never has a chance to see them' at all. At Panama the sea approaches to the canal will be theoretically divided into a series of small - squares, each of which will have its counterpart upon a plotting board. The range finders will locate the position of the advancing ships and at the right instant four of these great mortars will roar from their pits as they hurl as many shells skyward, seemingly, anywhere but at the foe. But if the men responsible for spotting the target have done their work well, the projectiles, after describing the path upward, will start earthward directly at their objective. If they hit destruction will follow, for each of the missiles will carry a heavy charge of high explosive.

Perhaps you think this roundabout way of target is not a promising one, but, according to the official report of the war department, remarkably accurate practise has been obtained by expert gunners of the coast artillery. They are trained ,to fire at moving targets and, despite the difficulties of aiming from a hole in the ground at an objective which the gunners themselves do not see, mortar crews have been able to make the astonishing score of seven hits in eight shots at long range of nearly six miles, or a distance of about 10,000 yards. No dreadnaught today would care to invite mortar attack, because none of them Is proof, against this, sort of assault, and that means that they must try to damage the Panama defenses when lying farther seaward.

Painting Rocks With Mush.

In the zoological gardens in London they have just finished building a series of concrete hills and terraces upon which wild, animals will rpam at large under conditions as nearly natural as possible. These hills and terraces have been painted with a mixture of oatmeal mush and Sonemeal, the object being to add phosphate to the lime Of the concrete, phosphates being essential to the growth of moss and lichens. It is believed that this coating will capture the spores of mosses and lichens and enable them to grow, thus making the surface of the rocks green and more natural in appearance than the bare concrete.

The Logical Cause.

"I notice there is a great deal of snap In the marching of those men.** "Naturally. That is our crack com, Easy ” C.