South Bend News-Times, Volume 34, Number 272, South Bend, St. Joseph County, 29 September 1917 — Page 9

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An Ainerican Inventor's

Billions of Dollars Worth of SI

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link by UBoats and to Put Them

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Pictorial Diagram Showing How ithe 4Cannonball Submarines Are Lowered to the Sides of a Sunken Vessel, Attaching Themselves by Means of Their Electro-Magnets.' They Move Along Under Their Own Propellers, Drilling Holes for the Bolts That Will Hold the Pontoons Which Will Be Used Later to Raise the Ship

to Raise tlie

and Cargoes to Use Again

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T the bottom of the ocean lies untold wealth

in lost ships and cargoes. The submarine war alone has probably added billions of

value to the grand total. If anybody could invent a method of raising but a moderate proportion of these lost ships he would certainly tap a vast mine of riches and benefit the world greatly. The problem has been tackled by many methods without great success, but an American engineer, V. D. Sison, has .at last built a machine which he believes will settle the question and which appears quite practical. This latest inventor has planned to recover the ships by means of a novel submarine workshop in which the workers can move freely about the wreck and see just what they are doing. Hitherto such work has been done by divers who were unable, as a rule, to work satisfactorily st a greater depth than eighty feet, and were at all depths very much handicapped by difficulties of teeing and moving. The 4 'cannon ball submarine, ' as it has been called, is spherical, eight feet in diameter, made of specially tough Vanadium steel 14 inches thick and weighs six tons. It holds two operators, who work under normal atmospheric conditions, receiving oxj'gcn from a tank on top of the machine by an arrangement similar to that used in naval submarines. The Sisson vessel could stay under water seventy-two hours in an emergency. All the power used in operating this submarine is electric. A huge insulating cable capable of supporting fifty-six tons connects it with the tender ship on the surface. Within this cable are wires for transmitting current to the motors in the submarine and for telephonic communication. The submarine is fitted with two propellers and a rudder for lateral movement, and two propellers for up and down movement. The propellers can move the vessel at a speed of about two miles an hour. A very novel feature of the. submarine lies in the electric lights and look-out glasses. Projecting in front of the vessel are four huge 3,000candlo power nitrogen lamps covered with 2-inch glass and a steel netting. Near each lamp, fitted in the shell of the submarine, is a look-out lens of clearest glass four inches thick. At the back of the machine are an equal number of lights and lenses. It is calculated that with these the operators can see clearly a hundred feet through the water, even when the submarine is 500 feet down. When the general' location of the ship to be raised has been reached the submarine is let down by the cable from the tender ship into the water. The submarine circles around until she discovers the exact position of the wreck on the bottom, which she signals to the tender. The men in the submarine can talk by telephone to the surface. The tender then lowers .steel pontoons, huge tubes closed at both ends, which are laid along each side of the wreck. The pontoons are sunk by filling them with water at the surface, but

within each one is a mechanism to pump out the water and thus cause them to rise to the top. Each pontoon has two powerful electro-magnets, fed by a cable from the sur'ace. These large flat magnets hold the pontoon firmly against the side of the ship. From the pontoon rise twelve to twenty strong steel cables, which are kept upright, under water by air-filled buoys on their upper ends. The cables lie close against the side of the ship. Inserted in each cable is a two-inch expansion bolt with broad head. The submarine maneuvrcs into position until she is over one of these cables. She attaches herself to the side of the ship by four electro-magnets, running on carriers which are worked by shafts from the interior of the submarine. They operate in pairs, two enabling her to move sideways along the side of the ship and two to move up and down. Projecting through the front of the submarine are a two-inch drill and alongside it, six inches away, a thrust-bar. The submarine having attached itself by sucker-like magnets to the side of the ship in the position already described, the drill is thrust out toward the broad-headed bolt on the first cable. It pushes the bolt a little to one side and then under the direction of the skilled operators in the submarine quickly drills a twoinch hole in the steel plate of the ship. ' Then the submarine crawls six inches sideways on its magnet carriers until the push bar is just over the hole drilled. The push-bar then gets hold of the bolt head fixed in the cable. The push-bar is fitted with a concave magnet, while the bolt head is convex. The bolt head while the current is on is therefore held firmly against the push-bar, which thrusts the bolt into the two-inch hole already drilled. This bolt is fitted with expansion wings which open slightly after it is pushed through the hole and make withdrawal impossible. The ship's side is now attached firmly by the steel cable to the pontoon. The submarine continues to travel along the side of the ship drilling holes and pushing in bolts. The bolts are about eighteen inches apart. It has been ea'culated h the inventor that it 1.1 1 i- a a tri-i ii

wouiu require one nnnura pumoons 10 1111 inc Lusitania from the bottom of the ocean. The largest pontoon used is about forty feet lonp and fifteen feet in diameter, and has a lifting power of 300 tons when the water is driven out. The Lusitania weighed approximately 45,000 tons, but her weight in the water would be only equivalent to 30,000 tons. It would therefore require one hundred pontoons lifting 300 tons apiece to raise her. A working model of the submarine was first built and then tested in a tank. A full-sized machine is now nearly completed in the workshop of the American .Salvage Co., of New York, which is conducting this enterprize. It is planned that this machine shall be used without delay lo rai-e a steamship which has been lying at th bottom of Lake Huron for two years with $1,000.000 ol' copper in her.

Lower Half of the Shell of the "Cannon Ball Submarine" During Construction, and (on the Left) Design er's Plan, Showing A, A, A, A, 3,000-Candle-Power Nitrogen Lamps. B,B,B,B, Electro-Magnets That Hold the Submarine to the Ship's Side. C, Oxygen Tank. D, D, Lookout Lenses. E, Push-Bar. F, Drill

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