Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 230, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 October 1918 — Page 3

Salvage Lessens U-Boat Toll.

Raisina of Manu Sunken Ships bu Enaland Helps to Defeat the German Submarine Campaian

UILDIJs’G new ships to replace | losses is not the only way.to defeat ■ the German submarine campaign. I Saving ships that have been dam- ■<„; ■ aged, lifting those, even, that have been sunk, add restoring them to seagoing condition, are among the methods which have gradually been gjasS improved in England as the strln- , 7 gency of the shipping shortage became greater each month. The reason why the British authorities were not fully equipped to raise every ship that was sunk from the very start of the war is purely commercial. Salving ships costs money. Building new ones costs money. So long as the cost of salving was equal er even slightly in excess of the cost of building, so long it was not worth the while of owners to order salvage operations—just so long were invention and progress in the art of salvage delayed. When the salving of ships became urgent in the course of 1916 Inventors of new appliances and new methods, salvage experts of many years standing, set their brains to work,* and the result is that today ships can be raised and repaired. from positions that two years ago would have been abandoned as hopeless. As showing how need stimulates invention, I may instance a discovery in chemistry which has proved to be of the utmost value in salvage work, writes H. C. Ferraby in Country Life. It is obvious that when a,ship, laden with grain, beef, or other perishable stuffs, gets water-logged with seawater, something very unpleasant is going to happen to her cargo. In point of fact, it turns into ' miniature poison-gas factory. Grain produces sulphuretted hydrogen, and the salvage men who stumble on a pocket of that in a beached ship would be seized with violent siokness, wchild be partially blinded for some time, and would turn a dull leaden color in the face. Experiment brought an antidote to this trouble, and now the cargo of a ship that is to be salved can be sprayed with a special solution as soon as there is any reason to suspect poison gas. This spraying removes all danger. Salvage work before the war was purely a private enterprise. The admiralty had no salvage branch, and when warships went ashore or were beached after collision the private firms, like the Liverpool Salvage association, were called in. War jltered that, like many other things in the maritime world, and today the whole of the salvage work around the United Kingdom is carried out by an admiralty department. But since the men manning that depart* ment are, without exception, the former heads of the salvage business, the difference is mainly in titles and not in methods. Warship salving Is confidential, and the work done by the department in this* direction cannot be described. Its share in keeping the allies supplied with merchant ships, however, is not secret, and the record of work done since October, 1915, is an excellent one. Down to the end of 1917 the admiralty salvage section, under the guidance of Capt. F. W. Young, had rescued 260 wrecked, mined or torpedoed ships and sent them In for repairs. All that time their experience was growing. New material was being built for the work, new ideas were being put into practical shape, and the result is that the year 1918 has so far seen a remarkable Increase in the number of ships saved. The figures for the early part of this year are: January, 14; February, 41;March, 37; April, 36; May, 19; giving a total of 147. Thus in 32 months 407 ships have been restored to the world’s mercantile tonnage. The Germans count all these and some of them twice over, in their calculations of the tonnage loss Inflicted on the allies by the submarine campaign. Every salvage man will tell you that the only thing certain about it is that you never know what is going to happen. A ship may be ashore in the simplest position, with just one big hole in her to be patched up, and it looks like a job that will take a few days. In the end you are, perhaps, six months hanging around with that one ship before you can get her to float. Weather, tides and the condition of the cargo all play a leading part in the work. The only thing the salvage man has got to do all the time is to be patient. That, perhaps, is why they all look so tired. Waiting is a weary business. The weather is the worst enemy of salvage meu. It is very nice on a fine summer’s day to stand on the cliffs and look down at the busy . humming .workshops that we call salvage steamers clustered round a wreck that shines red with rust tn the sunlight. The motors of the pumps drone incessantly, and the great 12-inch pipes send out cascades, of gray water whose stale stfcnt travels far before it is lost. The metalhelmeted divers clamber up and down, sitting for a while in the sun to make report of their progress below, receiving orders for the next stage, or just resting. It is different when the southwesterly gales blow, when rollers pour in from the Atlantic and pound down like Naasmyth hammers on the decks of the wreck. The salvage boats and tugs all have to run for shelter, work has to be abandoned, and only the still, silent hulk is left to weather the storm. So long as she is firmly imbedded in the sand or shingle, however, and there is plently of water inside her as well as outside, it takes a good many months of storms to knock a ship to pieces. It is often necessary, in order to save a wreck from the effects of weather, to flood compartments in her that had remained watertight. The problem of dealing with the water in wrecks and in ships that have been holed but are still afloat has been advanced very far toward solution during the war by the general adoption of a new British invention, which has been described as a miracle of modern electrical engineering. Described simply, it is an electrically driven purrip which can be entirely submerged and will still pump as efficiently as if it were above water. The submersible pump, ds it is called, does' things that* no one ever believed a pump could do. I saw one in the hold of a wreck recently, covered with a black, evil-smell-

Ing ooze, looking for all the world like a bit of wreckage itself. But it had just finished a long bout of pumping under water in that hold, which was filled with floating barrels, beams, tangled Ironwork and a sludge that was indescribable; and when it had been put over the side and had pumped a few tons of clean sea water through itself, that pump was ready to start work again anywhere. The secret of the pump is that it is not watertight—which sounds absurd. It is, perfectly true that the water can flow in and around the whole of the works of the pump while it is at work. No one has ever hitherto succeeded in making electricity work under water in this way; but the uses of the discovery are plain even to the layman. A ship fitted with these pumps, for example, ought never to sink, if she has enough of them on board, because they can be set to work in the flooded compartments and pump the water out as fast as it comes in. Damage to the engine rooms does not affect the pumps, because they do not rely for their current on the ship’s dynamos, but on their own portable outfit. Salvage experts tell one rather amusing tale of the versatility of the pumps. A fire broke out in the hold of a ship that was carrying a very valuable Inflammable cargo. Two submersible pumps were on board, and the captain slung them over the side into 4he sea, attached a good length of hose to then! and set them going to pump water at the rate of about 350 tons an hour each into the burning hold. They soon put the fire out, and the captain then lowered the pumps into the hold and made them pump out the water they had previously pumped in.

INTRICATE WEAPON

Back of the torpedo is its fish-shaped body, containing all the machinery to drive and steer after It has been launched. From forward aft we find compartments as follows: A compressed air reservoir, an immersion or balance chamber, engine space and a buoyancy chamber. The tiny engine is driven by compressed air, which is compressed to a high degree, and it rotates the propellers whereby the projectile is carried through the water. The immersion or balance chamber provides the means of maintaining the depth at which the torpedo shall travel through the water after being launched. In the engine chamber there is also the device for keeping the projectile to its designated path during its travel. This is achieved by means of a gyroscope. The buoyancy chamber, which is placed aft of the engine chamber, is virtually a vacuum. Without this chamber the torpedo would sink. The propellers and rudders are astern and outside the torpedo’s body.

WONDERFUL RESEMBLANCE.

Dion Boucicault, the actor-dramatist, was the very image of Sir Kenelm Digby, the seventeenthcentury philosopher. Douglas Jerrold and Montgolfier, the Inventor of balloons, might have passed as twin brothers, Montagu Williams had only to don a black periwig to become a perfect double of diaries II as depicted by Sir Peter Lely. The likeness between Byron and J. L. Motley, the historian- of the Dutch republic, was de- ’ scribed by the poet’s widow as “most wonderfuL” Charles MacFarlane in his “Reminiscences of a Literary Life,” describes how, in 1834, he met Shelley in the Royal Burbon museum. Naples, and showed Mm a statue of Agrippina, the mother

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN. RENSSELAER, ' - ——————

Fire at sea, collision, weather and other marine risks are all dealt with by the admiralty salvage section just as much as war risks such as mining and torpedoing; but it is, of course, the war risks that provide the bulk of the cases. The work of the section falls really into three parts. There are, first of all, the rescue tugs. These proceed to any ship that is in distress, whatever the cause, and endeavor to tow her Into port, or at least to get her Into shallow water/ Where She can ger aground or even sink and still be salvable. In the latter case the second part of the section’s work begins—the patching up, emptying and lifting. This may take anything from six weeks to six months. When she is lifted and afloat again she is towed to the nearest sheltered anchorage, and there temporary repairs are effected, she is cleaned up inside and her engineroom restored to something like order. It is the aim, as far as possible, *to enable her to proceed to a shipyard under her own steam. There are cases, of course, where the torpedo or the mine has exploded just by the engine-room and blown everything to fragments. Then the hull, patched up, has to be towed to the repairing yard; but in the majority of cases the damage is in the bows or in the stern, and the vessel can limp along by herself after first aid from the salvage Section. British salvage experts have little hope of ’ salving any of" the ships that are down in deep ° water. The physical limitations of divers alone would make it an impossibility to raise, for example, the Lusitania, and, so far, no mechanical devices that have been suggested or made hold out any hope of doing the work of the diver with any success.

of Nero. “I told him that the Bonaparte family considered this the very image of their mother. When Madame Mere was in Naples, her daughter, Queen Caroline, Induced her to sit by the statue, and made a large party remark on the striking resemblance.”

GREAT PLAY NEVER PRODUCED.

Gen. Lew Wallace wrote a tragedy entitled "Coinmodus,” which was founded on the story of Maternus, an escaped slave, who rebelled against his country, placed himself at the head of a band of outlaws, planned the capture of Rome and his own elevation to the throne, but was finally betrayed and killed. It was never produced, but Lawrence Barrett, to whom it was submitted, wrote General Wallace that it was the best play since “Richelieu,” and that "both as a poem and as an acting play ‘Commodus’ is the best English drama.” It was printed, but hever staged.—Boston Globe.

“It’s just dawned on me why those trapeze performers are sech funny , fellers,” said the manager of the op’ry house. “Wall, why is it, ole Smart Alec,” asked the sher’f of the taoun. “Why, cause the dern cusses la allers actin’ up.”

A beautiful young lady approached the ticket window, and in a voice like the rippling of a brook asked the clerk: “What is the fare to the fair?” To which the clerk replied: “Same as to the homely, madam.” \

UP, SEE, UP.

FAIR TREATMENT.

BLUE —MORE BLUE

Autumn’s “Call to the Colors” Issues Summons. Whole Rainbows of Shades In Great r asm on onows, vorresponoenxs Relate— New Names. 1 A To paraphrase a much-quoted verse —Silhouettes may come and go, but new shades come forever I There are whole rainbows in the New York fashion exhibits, writes a correspondent. When the war began and we were bereft of imported dyes the prophets of calamity pictured the American public parading the earth in stainless white or crocky black, like animated pen and ink drawings. All costumes were to be matters of sharp contrast and high visibility and scarlet and purple were to vanish from the earth. , Luckily their prophecies are unfulfilled and American women still go arrayed like lilies of the field, In rainbow hues that stand up remarkably under repeated tubbings. The American dye makers are triumphant, and shoppers are no longer warned that heavenly colors are “not guaranteed to wash.” ' As usual, the new autumn season Is to offer a fascinating array of new shades and of modified old shades in brand new names. Dark blue continues Its undisputed reign as the “best” color for all purposes. Dark shades of blue are the favorites, both for street and evening wear. Mrs. Wilson, wife of the president, herself christened one deep shade of blue “Liberty” and the war has bestowed on other dark shades the titles of “Joffre,” “Blue * Devil,” “Poilu,” “Pershing” and “Overseas.” “Casque” is the romantic name bestowed on a steel. blue that reflects the light on “tin hats.” Besides the war blues/there are wonderful shades called Japan blues, and one alluringly dubbed “Cleopatra.” Purples, too, are exceedingly good this year, and ail show the blue tints. Their new names* are “Sammy,” “Phlox,” and “Yankee purple.” Among the browns, which range from khaki to seal shades, are many that take golddtt tones. Reds-will enjoy a nes# vogue, but they are rich rather than vivid, most of them inclining to brown tones— Burgundy, mulberry and lobster, with some wonderful “old” reds, such as Indian, geranium and terracotta, the latter masked under a new name—“Dourga.” All grays will be unusually good, even those of bluish cast which ordinarily are reserved for the warm seasons. • Greens are to be offered, but it is not safe to predict their reception. American women never have taken kindly to green. 1 However, the new ones, which hint of brown and yellow, are attractive and not so trying as the greens of other years.

VELVET FOR NEW FALL HATS

Panne Material to Be in the Forefront, According to Latest Bulletin of Millinery Association. Panne velvet will be an important factor in popular-priced fall millinery this year, according to the latest bulletin of the Retail Millinery Association of America. It says: “Some of the advance fall models ‘hat are being displayed by popularpriced wholesale bouses consist of panne velvet combined with plain velvet; satin or taffeta combined with beaver, satin combined with velvet, and all velvet. Many of the black models

FOR STREET WEAR THIS FALL

In selection of fall gowns one is attracted by thia black satin, one-piece street frock with braid on the cuffs and top end bottom of the skirt.

BUCK JET BEAD SUNBURST

A black Jet bead sunburst Is scattered over this entire surface, affording a captivating and stylish adornment,

display colored facings of panne velvet. Some hats are shown in twotone effects —taupe with burgundy or mahogany, green with amber or taupe and blue. These combinations are most attractive, and the colors displayed are the new shades for fall. “In medium and small shapes In velvet, smocking or tucking is used to a great extent. In a saucer brim effect the smocking appears on the under brim; In turbans it is used around the side crown. Ostrich bands, both’ wide and narrow, uncurled or curled ostrich fancies in single or double ply, ostrich pompons, appliqued flower designs, wings, large and small stitching of silk floss (In some cases to match the facing of the hat) and wired loops of ribbons or velvet are used as ( trimmings. “The shapes seen in these hats are saucer brim effects in medium-sized shapes, turbans, elongated or round, turbans sloping to- one side, large shapes with wide sides and short back and fronts with upturned back. Crowns are high, collapsible, draped and folded.”

FIND NEW KIND OF TRIMMING

Heads in Water Color Are Effectively Used to Garnish an Attractive Evening Drees. The water color artist has discovered new fields for conquest, and the bodices of evening dresses are the canvases used. The old flower motifs have been discarded, according to the official journal of the National Garment Retailers association, and newer things are taklng*their places. "A certain evening frock’s pink bodice,” it says, “is ornamented with three little water-colored heads, which are about the size of a half dollar. One is the head of a giggling schoolgirl, befrilled and beribboned. Another is that of a budding “deb,” and the third Is of an English ‘Johnny? eyeglasses and sleek. > “The interesting point about thia form of trimming lies in the fact that it is not a design or in the least conventionalized, but true life sketching very well executed- However, this makes all the more evident its harsh, exacting note on the soft bodice of an evening gown.”

STYLES IN OUR HEADGEAR

Both Large and Small Hats, Loaded or Unloaded With Trimming, Fashionable This Season. This is a season of wide diversity of ideas in millinery. As a very successful and well-known milliner remarked the other day, "Any style that is becoming is fashionable this season.” You may wear big hats or little hats or hats of medium size, and they may be of any fabric practical for millinery; and as for trimming there are models rather elaborately trimmed, simply trimmed models and hats almost entirely devoid of trimming. This is indeed welcome news, and woe to the woman who does not have a becoming hat. She cannot blame It on the modes of the moment but upon her own lack of judgment or care in the selection of this most Important detail of her wardrobe.

SKIRTS SHORT AND TIGHTER

Latest Mandate From Goddess of Styles, According to Report Reaching New York. Skirts are to be at least three Inches shorter and much tighter this winter, writes a New York correspondent. This is the latest mandate of the goddess of style, and the news was hronght to American women here by Miss Margaret Dreaker, foreign buyer for a prominent American firm, who arrived from France. “You can tell American women that styles for fafi and winter call for skirts at least three inches shorter and much tighter,” said Miss Dreaker. “Jackets are to be shorter, and tighter, too. All designs look toward the conservation of cloth. Prevailing colors will be brown, green, navy blue and taupe.”