CHAPTER XV

There have been few pluckier fights for a ship than that waged over a great, camouflaged merchantman torpedoed by the Germans off the Cornish coast during the war. She was badly holed, but her captain bravely stuck to her and managed to beach her near Bude.

Hastening to her aid, the salvage officer found her on a beach exposed to the full force of the Atlantic. With wind and sea rapidly rising, it was obvious that nothing could prevent her from going to pieces. The rollers were battering her, shaking and straining her ominously, seeking to finish what the German torpedo had begun.

So desperate was her situation that her one chance lay in reaching a more sheltered spot. The salvage officer looked at the sky, saw the wind blowing the crests off the waves, then he got busy. Working at pressure, he and his men managed to set a few baulks of timber within the ship to strengthen the damaged hull, and as the tide rose his tugs and salvage vessel started to haul her off the beach. He knew she was in a sinking condition, that she might go down before he could get her to a place of safety, but against this risk was her certain loss if she remained where she was.

Then began his struggle to beat the coming gale. The steamer was quite unmanageable, so he set two tugs hauling away in front, while he hung on behind with the salvage vessel, making his ship play the part of a rudder to the damaged craft. Along the coast northward the little procession made its way. The pumps were working continuously, throwing out tons of water, but they could not conquer the inrush. The captain and crew were still aboard, fighting hard to keep down the water. But all their efforts were useless. Gradually the ship sank lower and lower in the seas, and by the time they had reached Hartland Point--one of the most dangerous spots on that exposed coast--her end seemed but a matter of minutes. Her decks were practically awash. Heavy seas rolled right over them, and it became imperative to take off the men aboard. A dozen attempts were made in those heaving seas before the crew were rescued, and as the last man left he cast off the towing hawsers.

Only the _Ranger_, that famous salvage ship, hung on, still straining at the stern of the sinking steamer. A man stood by to slip the cable as she foundered, and the rescued crew crowded round to see her go, all waiting tensely for the end.

[Illustration: THE SHIP WHICH WAS GIVEN UP FOR LOST, AFTER HER MEN HAD BEEN RESCUED WITH DIFFICULTY. THE TUGS, TO AVOID BEING DRAGGED DOWN BY THE FOUNDERING VESSEL, CAST OFF THEIR HAWSERS, BUT THE SALVAGE STEAMER STILL HUNG ON TO THE STERN AND 7 GALLANT MEN GAMBLED WITH DEATH IN A LAST EFFORT TO SALVE HER]

For a few moments the salvage officer watched the torpedoed ship. A few miles along the coast was Clovelly and safety. He wondered if he could make it in spite of everything, if there was yet a chance of snatching a victory over wind and wave, not to mention the Germans. After a close scrutiny of the ship, he determined to try.

[Illustration: IN THE FACE OF INCREDIBLE DIFFICULTIES THE SALVAGE MEN TRIUMPHANTLY BEACHED THE SINKING STEAMER AT CLOVELLY]

Turning to his men, he called for volunteers to help him make one last attempt. Half a dozen men stepped forward. All knew the odds were against them, that a watery grave probably awaited them. Yet none hesitated.

Watching their opportunity, they brought their boat alongside the sinking ship and scrambled aboard. Then they took up the fight again. By great good fortune she had a donkey-engine on her upper deck, and the salvors succeeded in starting it up and getting the pumps working again. That donkey-engine proved their salvation, just enabled her to keep afloat. But it was touch and go all the time.

These seven gallant men in the end brought the ship to Clovelly harbour and put her ashore on that stony beach right under the picturesque village. She was nicely sheltered, and the salvors were able to fit her with a standard patch before taking her to dry dock. Thus the salvors wrested a victory out of the very jaws of defeat.

Several successful dramatists have staged a thrilling fight between divers, many a novelist penned vivid descriptions of similar encounters to make the hearts of his readers beat a little faster. Yet such struggles between real divers in the depths of the sea are so rare that it is doubtful if more than one authentic case exists.

This historic fight between divers took place at the bottom of the Solent during the recovery of some of the relics from the _Royal George_. The two divers, Jones and Girvan, were keen men, proud of their skill as submarine workers, each a little jealous of the other. One day Jones came across a cannon buried in the sand and, being unable to deal with it, marked it for a future occasion. Divers as a rule are extremely chivalrous. They would scorn to take a mean advantage, and they would never think of breaking the rule that what one finds, the finder salves. Whether Girvan, coming on the cannon, thought it a new find that he was entitled to salve, or whether he deliberately made up his mind to try to salve the other diver’s find, is not known. All we know is that Jones, who had been working some little distance away, came on Girvan trying to get out the cannon. Naturally, Jones was indignant, and indicated to Girvan by energetic dumb show that the latter had no right to deal with the piece.

Girvan was by no means inclined to relinquish the cannon, and further remonstrances were followed up by blows. The divers began a rough and tumble fight at the bottom of the sea, striking at each other savagely with their fists. They were by no means equally matched, for Jones was much the smaller man of the two. Realizing that the encounter might cost him his life, he took the first opportunity of trying to get to the surface. Reaching the shot-rope, he went up it about 5 or 6 feet, closely pursued by Girvan who, grabbing his legs, did his utmost to pull him down again. The divers fought desperately in their rage, Jones to get away from those clutching hands that gripped his legs, Girvan to drag him to the seabed again, and that dramatic fight reached its climax in the greatest disaster that can overtake a diver. The glass of Girvan’s helmet was smashed by a blow, and as the water swept in it seemed that his end was nigh.

Luckily, however, the men on the surface, unable to explain the violent agitation of the lines and feeling that something serious must be wrong, dragged both men to the top. Girvan’s smashed helmet told its own tale and set them working frantically to pull him round. He was at his last gasp. Another minute and they would have been too late. He was removed to hospital, where his splendid physique, coupled with excellent nursing, enabled him to pull round. Those two divers who fought that strange fight at the bottom of the Solent came to the conclusion that it did not pay for divers to disagree, so they ended their differences by becoming the staunchest of friends.

Other attendants in tropic waters, feeling a strange dragging at the lines, have also drawn the divers to the surface without loss of time, to find them in the clutches of the deadly octopus, whose horrible tentacles have been coiling round the divers, striving to draw them within reach of the deadly beak that would go through the rubber diving dress as though it were paper. There, on the deck of the diving vessel, they have had to fight desperately to free the divers from the grip of the loathsome creature, only succeeding in the end by chopping and hacking away the encircling tentacles. As recently as the spring of 1924, when I happened to be in the South of France, a diver at Marseilles had to be rescued from an octopus in this thrilling manner.

The octopus, or squid, is, indeed, the greatest danger that the diver has to face beneath the surface of the sea so far as the denizens of the deep are concerned. Those squids occasionally found round the British coast are too small to threaten the diver, but in warmer waters, where the squid attains a huge size, he will rapidly attack any unlucky diver who unconsciously ventures too near his deep-sea lair.

The habits of fish are rather quaint. Should they be near the surface when a shadow falls on the water, a flick of the tail sends them disappearing into the depths. But undersea they are as inquisitive as cows. When fish see a diver standing still on the bottom, they find something about him too fascinating to withstand. Perhaps it is his form, perhaps the long line of bubbles flowing continually from the exhaust valve of his helmet. Whatever it is, they are drawn to the strange creature, and their fishy mouths suck at arms and legs and body in an effort to find out whether the diver is good to eat. The least movement sends them speeding away. The bigger fish are just as inquisitive, and just as easily scared. The diver needs only to open his air valve to let a little air escape in order to frighten them out of their fishy wits. Even the shark, the so-called tiger of the seas, is not generally feared by divers, for he is as scared by a sudden escape of air from the valve as are the smaller fish.

Yet the shark is fearfully inquisitive, and will come back again and again to see what the strange figure is doing. Sometimes, indeed, the same shark becomes such a confounded nuisance, and the diver wastes so much time in scaring him away, that he is forced to put an end to the intrusion by slaying the monster. One diver, who had been worried day after day by the same shark, was compelled to signal to the surface for a knife. He then calmly held out his hand as bait, just as you hold out a bone to a dog, and as the monster turned to snap the delicacy, he stabbed it to death. Slipping a noose round the body of the fish, he sent it to the surface so that it would not attract other unwelcome visitors--for the scent of death in the sea is carried far afield by the invisible currents and soon brings the sea creatures swarming round--and was then able to resume his work in peace.

As already mentioned, it is often difficult for divers to see owing to the sand and mud suspended in the water, especially near the mouths of big rivers. A few feet down, and the light is quite shut out by the clouds of mud and sand floating about. Sometimes the divers work up to their armpits in foul slime--I recollect some years ago when a racing yacht was recovered from underneath 20 feet of mud--at other times the mud is so deep and thick that they spread-eagle themselves on its surface and manage to work in this recumbent attitude.

But when the diver gets to a hard bottom he is not handicapped in this way, and in sunnier climes and seas he can easily see at a depth of 100 feet. The sea-growths around Great Britain are not to be compared in size and colouring with the lovely tropic growths of coral and fern-like weed found in the warmer waters. Out, for instance, in the Pacific the depths of some of the lagoons are just like Fairyland: filmy forests of ribbons and ferns, inhabited by fish of the most gorgeous and dazzling colours, butterflies of the deep. This submarine scenery, in its way, is as beautiful as anything to be found on earth.

More than one salvage man in the past has made a snug fortune salving ships on the distant coasts of South America and the Pacific, often in the most simple manner by patching and pumping. Until comparatively recently the salvage man, if he wanted to lift a vessel, generally bought up a couple of old hulks and used these for slinging the wreck inshore. By the time the wreck was beached, the hulks were about smashed to pieces.

The principle of lifting a ship by means of a coffer-dam has already been indicated. It was a principle of which Mr. Tom Armit was a brilliant exponent. He raised several ships this way, building timbers all round to extend the hull upward, and then timbering all this over, virtually adding another deck to the ship. This coffer-dam, covering the whole ship, was made watertight, and, as it was pumped out, the added buoyancy refloated the ship. If leaks happened to manifest in the coffer-dam during pumping operations, the salvors calmly fed spun oakum into the water which carried it into the leak and soon stopped it!

On occasions during a collision at sea, mattresses and clothes have been thrown into the water, which has carried them to the leak, where they have become wedged, enabling the sailors aboard ship to tackle the damage from the inside. Collision mats are specially made for such emergencies so that they may be lowered over the hole, the pressure of the water holding them tightly against the side of the ship and enabling the carpenter to get to work on the inside as the inrush of water is stopped. Another salvor’s trick is to stretch a tarpaulin over the hole to hold back the water. It is but temporary, yet it enables him to gain time to get timbers in place inside so that the pumps can then deal with the water that finds its way in. There are also special patches that may be pushed through the hole in the hull from the inside of the ship and opened out like an umbrella, after which they are drawn tightly against the hull by screwing up from the inside.

Pontoons alone have raised more than one little wreck in the manner already described. Other small ships have been raised by filling their holds with air-tight bags which, upon being blown up, have striven to rise to the surface, carrying the wreck with them, much to the delight of the salvors.

Vickers, the great armament firm, have their own patent system of raising wrecks by means of canvas containers. An American concern has a submarine machine, something like an army tank in appearance, for drilling holes in the hull of a sunken ship. These holes are drilled in line and large hooks are inserted, to which are attached strong, air-tight containers, one to each hook. The intention is to drill holes along each side of the hull of a wreck, attach the air bags, blow them up and lift the craft.

Whether the plates composing the hull of a ship are strong enough to support the entire weight of a ship in this way, or whether they would collapse under the strain of raising the ship from the bottom remains to be seen. It must be borne in mind that the backbone of a ship is the keel, that the whole ship is built up from the keel, which is its strongest part, the foundation of the ship. The inventors of this new system propose to lift the dead weight of the ship from the seabed, but hitherto salvors who have accomplished these feats have always swept their cables under the keel of the vessel to avoid the risk of pulling her to pieces.

Before the War there existed at least one special lifting craft, consisting of two steamers linked together by strong girders. These twin craft were brought into position so that the wreck lay between them, cables were fixed under the wreck, and the lifting craft picked up the sunken ship as the tide rose, steamed away with it until it grounded again, when the operation would be repeated next tide.

The salvors have several ingenious ways of getting cables into position. Sometimes two tugs towing cables between them sweep them under the wreck. At other times the end is let down to a diver who digs or scrapes a hole under the keel and forces the cable through; another rope is then let down from above, the diver attaches it to the end of the cable, which is drawn to the surface and attached to the lifting craft. A quicker method of forcing a hole under the keel is to use a powerful pump which, directed by the diver, rapidly drives a way under the wreck for the lifting cable.

It was while using a pump for this purpose on the wreck of the _Intrepid_ on the Belgian seaboard that a most amazing adventure befell a diver of the Salvage Section. The wreck was buried 20 feet in clay and mud, and the diver by skilful use of the pump dug his way down to the keel. He was standing at the bottom of this pit when it caved in on top of him. He was buried alive, held as in a vice under a dozen feet of mud and clay, the weight of which doubled him up.

Luckily he still retained his hold of the pump, and after a desperate struggle managed to direct the jet of water on to himself until he loosened one arm. As the water softened the clay, he worked the other arm free, then little by little his legs. Wrapping them round a wire, he directed the pump upwards and inch by inch wriggled and burrowed his way through that dozen feet of clay to the surface. His air-pipe was hopelessly entangled, so he was compelled to cut it before he could be hauled up to safety. No diver would care to undergo such an experience a second time.

Comedy so seldom plays a part in diving adventures that a case which occurred some years ago is worth recording. Divers had been at work for some time hauling the cargo out of a submerged wreck, when one of them, upon being drawn up, displayed quite exceptional signs of exhaustion. A sleep soon put him right, and he resumed work next day.

Again he showed signs of acute fatigue, which passed away after a night’s rest. The following morning he went down as usual, and this time when he came up he was quite unable to stand. He collapsed on the deck, while those aboard crowded round, very concerned about his safety.

Hastily unscrewing his helmet, one of the salvors sniffed in a puzzled sort of way. A familiar smell came to his nostrils. He sniffed once more, the others looking at him queerly.

“What’s wrong?”

“Whisky!” muttered the kneeling man, thinking his sense of smell must have betrayed him.

They all sniffed in unison, and the smell was unmistakable.

“He’s drunk!” said the first man.

The idea was preposterous!

“But how----?” queried another.

That was the question which baffled them. How was it possible for a diver to get drunk under water? The mystery would have delighted Sherlock Holmes. There were cases of whisky in the wreck at the bottom of the sea, but the diver would be drowned if he attempted to drink it. He was imprisoned in his suit. So how?

Not a word did they say to the drowsy diver, but when he went down the following day another diver discreetly followed. He saw the first diver take a bottle of whisky and proceed to a cabin. Instantly the mystery was cleared up. The exhaust air from his helmet, collecting here, had formed an air pocket, and the diver, poking his helmet out of the water, calmly unscrewed the glass front and took a good pull at the bottle. In this ingenious manner did he manage to get drunk under water!

For recovering metal objects, such as anchors accidentally lost in dock, there is the electric magnet. Among other inventions for seeing on the seabed and recovering lost treasure is the hydroscope of the Italian, Cavaliere Pino. The hydroscope is a floating chamber, from which depends a series of steel pipes that may be extended or shortened at will, just like a telescope. The pipes terminate in a chamber with observation windows made of stout glass, and a man sitting here can observe the whole seabed round about, provided the water is clear, while the hydroscope is being slowly towed along on the surface.

[Illustration: WHEN A SHIP OVERTURNS ON QUICKSANDS, THE SALVORS ERECT GREAT LEGS ON THE HULL, AS SHOWN HERE, AND TAKE STRONG STEEL CABLES FROM THE MASTS OF THE WRECK OVER THE TOPS OF THESE LEGS AND HAUL ON THEM UNTIL THEY DRAG THE SHIP UPRIGHT]

The hydroscope has done some good work, and by its aid one wreck was raised in five hours after salvors who had been working on it for months had declared that the craft was lost for ever. It was this Italian invention that the Japanese used in clearing the sunken Russian fleet from the bottom of Port Arthur after the termination of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. A similar invention worked out by a Mr. Williamson has resulted in some extraordinary underwater cinema films being secured.

The War led to a big development in the use of compressed air for raising wrecks, divers sealing up all the apertures in the tops of the wrecks with concrete to imprison the compressed air, which was then pumped into the ship until enough water was expelled to enable her to float. The War also hatched a crop of cranky salvage ideas that gave some of the salvage experts one or two happy moments.

One such moment was just after the War, when an American walked into one of the British shipping departments and requested to be allowed to salve a ship in order to demonstrate the efficiency of his new method. The officer to whom the stranger went was courteous, listening attentively to the American’s demand, and inquiring at last which ship of the few hundreds sunk round our coasts he would like to demonstrate on.

“Any one!” said the American. “I don’t mind. The bigger the better. What about the _Lusitania_?”

“She’s rather deep,” it was suggested.

“That doesn’t matter. It makes no difference to me what the depth is,” came the easy reply.

The officer put a few questions, and then learned that the stranger designed to use a submarine, which was to fire torpedoes right through the _Lusitania_, each torpedo carrying with it a steel cable. These were to be picked up at the other side and taken to the surface, and then the wreck was to be dragged bodily out of the depths!

That scheme to salve a ship by first of all smashing a series of holes through her hull with torpedoes did not commend itself to the British expert. It was, indeed, quite impracticable.

None the less, there are people who still wonder if it will ever be possible to salve the _Lusitania_, which was torpedoed off the Irish coast on May 7, 1915. From time to time the matter keeps cropping up.

Those who are curious on the subject may be interested to know that the chances of raising the _Lusitania_ are so small as to be almost negligible. The sheer weight of the sea quickly obliterates man’s handiwork, and the _Lusitania_ probably ceased to be a ship years ago. It is extremely likely that the tremendous pressure to which she was subjected at the depth of 288 feet long ago crushed her flat. Proposals have been made to try to salve the valuable 30-ton safe from the strong-room of the liner, but personally I should not care to back such an enterprise.

The marvellous endurance of divers in going to great depths has been touched on in previous chapters, but perhaps the strangest task ever given to a diver was that of saving a cathedral. Some years ago, Winchester Cathedral was in such grave danger of collapsing that it became necessary to underpin the walls and strengthen the foundations. The whole cathedral stood upon a water-logged peat bog, the ancient builders upon reaching water having laid logs of beech to take their foundations. The modern architect, Mr. T. G. Jackson, and his engineering collaborator, Mr. Francis Fox, knew that to pump the water out would be practically to pump the cathedral to destruction, for the drift of the water was bound to carry the silt and gravel away from other portions of the building to where the pumps were working, and so bring about the collapse of the famous edifice.

After careful study of the difficulties, the engineer called in one of the crack divers of Siebe, Gorman & Company to carry out his plan. It was found that the beech logs put in by the ancient builders at water-level were resting on 6 feet of clay, which in turn covered a depth of just over 8 feet of peat, this in turn resting on a bed of gravel. To save the cathedral it was essential to excavate all the clay and peat down to the gravel, and replace it with concrete up to the foundations of the building.

The walls of the cathedral, properly supported, were treated in small sections of about 5 feet. The clay was dug out, then the diver entered the hole and, working in absolute darkness, removed the peat down to the level of the gravel. Bags of dry concrete were lowered to him and packed in tightly, a layer at a time, the diver splitting them open and spreading the contents evenly. In this way the hole was completely filled. The water soon turned the concrete into a rock-like mass, upon which the masons were able to build solidly right up to the foundations, from which the beech trees were carefully removed. Nothing like it was ever attempted before, so Winchester can boast that its cathedral is the only one in the world that has been given a solid foundation by a diver.

Just as the torpedoing of the _Lusitania_ by the Germans stirred the whole world, so the sinking of the American flagship _Maine_ in Havana harbour on February 18, 1898, stirred the people of the United States and led to the war with Spain. A giant explosion in the middle of the night carried the American battleship to the bottom with 266 officers and men, and it was asserted that the Spaniards had deliberately blown her up. The result was a war in which Spain lost Cuba and the Philippines.

Long years afterwards, in 1910, Congress voted a sum of £60,000 and the work of investigating the wrecked battleship was put in hand. Tackling their task in a most masterly manner, the engineers decided to enclose the whole wreck in one huge coffer-dam built of steel piles driven down through the mud until they were embedded 13 feet in the solid clay. As the wreck lay in 37 feet of water, with 20 feet of mud below that, the piles would emerge 5 feet above the surface of the sea, providing a wall too high for the water to wash over.

Knowing full well that they would find it difficult to create a plain circle of piles round the ship to withstand the pressure of the sea, the engineers decided to build what really amounted to a series of gigantic barrels, standing on end in the sea with their sides touching. These barrels, twenty-two in number, varied between 40 feet and 50 feet across. The staves of the barrels were formed by the steel piles which were made to interlock as they were driven in side by side, and where the barrels, or caissions, touched, further piles were driven to enclose the space and strengthen the junction.

For months the hammer-blows of the pile drivers resounded over the harbour, and at last the coffer-dam--a most marvellous piece of work--was finished and filled with dredged clay. Within a year the salvage operations were completed at a cost of £135,000. The experts watched with keen eyes as the pumps lowered the water within the coffer-dam and the wreck slowly emerged from the slime. There the battleship lay, a twisted mass of metal, and, before patching up the afterpart and taking it out on March 16, 1912, to bury in the broad Atlantic, the specialists held their inquest, striving to discover whether the explosion that sank her was caused from inside or outside.

Such a thing after a ship has been at the bottom for over twelve years is almost impossible to determine. It was said that the explosion came from outside, but the doubt will always exist that the Spanish American War may have been due to a grave error on the part of America, and that the _Maine_ instead of being blown up by the Spaniards, was destroyed by the spontaneous combustion of the explosives in her magazines, just as French, Japanese and British warships have been destroyed in the same accidental manner.

INDEX

Aberdeen, _Milwaukee_ wrecked near, 181.

Accidents rare in salvage work, 8.

Admiralty divers and _Laurentic_, 65–78.

Admiralty list of wrecks, 112.

Admiralty Salvage Section, formation of, 95.

Admiralty Salvage Section, ships salved by, 111.

Admiralty Salvage Section, work on Belgian Coast, 115.

Adventure aboard American submarine, 149.

Adventure of diver, 208.

Air bags, ships salved by, 206.

Air keeps back water, 85.

Air-lock, 85, 87.

Air-pressure blows man to surface of sea, 151.

Air _versus_ water, 35, 36.

Allies and shipbuilding programme, 113.

_Alphonso XII._, treasure recovered, 57.

American Line, 165.

American salvage records, 156.

American submarine, discovery of drifting, 144.

American submarine F.4, tragedy of, 152.

American submarine O.5 sinks, 151.

American submarine S.5, ordeal of, 141.

Amsterdam, 31.

_Araby_, 174–179.

Argyll, Duke of, 21.

Armada wreck, discovery of, 17.

Arming merchantmen in war, 97.

Armistice, war wrecks salved after, 112.

Armit salves a ship in halves, 181.

Armit, Tom, 181, 205.

Atrocity, _Belgian Prince_, 118.

_Audacious_, H.M.S., 19.

Award of £22,000 for salvage, 184.

Bad weather foils treasure-hunters, 47.

Ballast tanks in submarine, 132.

Ballast, using sea as, 111.

Battle with sand, 30.

Battleship floating upside-down, 87, 90.

Battleship raised by compressed air, 90.

Battleship, salving a, 79–93.

Battleship, shells salved from wreck, 84.

Battleship sinks upside-down, 82.

Baulks of timber, 90.

Belgian coast, salvage work on, 115.

_Belgian Prince_, tragedy of, 118, 119.

Bell of _Lutine_, 26.

Blasting for treasure, 31.

Blasting through bulkheads, 169.

Blazing sea, 161.

Blazing ship shelled, 162, 163.

Blow-pipes melt submarine’s plates, 138.

Boilers as bollards, 191.

Bollards made from boilers, 191.

Bombay, 188.

Boulogne harbour, clearing of, 175.

Brave deed of salvage men, 199.

Breathing compressed air, 35, 36.

Breault, Henry, imprisoned for thirty hours in submarine, 151.

Britain’s food supplies restricted, 96.

_Britannia_, extent of damage to, 172.

_Britannia_ torpedoed in Mediterranean, 173.

British battleship torpedoed, 173.

British diving record, 38, 68.

British Government and war wrecks, 112.

British Government insures all ships, 96.

British Navy’s treasure-hunt, 65–78.

British sailor escapes from sunken submarine, 149.

British salvage companies and Admiralty, 94.

British Salvage Section carries German submarine 40 miles, 158.

British Salvage Section fights U-boat menace, 97.

British Salvage Section, method of working, 97.

British submarine disaster, 133.

British warships and spontaneous combustion, 216.

Brown, Lawrence, imprisoned for thirty hours in submarine, 151.

_Brussels_, raising the, 159.

Bude, torpedoed ship beached near, 197.

Bulkheads, 107.

Bulkheads cause trouble, 169.

Bullivant’s cable, 191.

Burial at sea, 130.

Burning ship sunk, 162.

Business men and treasure, 11.

Butler, Charles, escapes from sunken submarine, 151.

Cables for carrying submarine, 125.

Cables, how placed under wreck, 125.

Calmness of British seamen in danger, 133.

Camera, how cinema man saved, 150.

Cape Finisterre, 46.

Captain Kidd, 11.

Carpi, General, 93.

Cathedral restored by diver, 213.

Chapman, R. E., 168.

Charts, concealed, 99.

Charts full of flags, 99.

Chinese pirates chase treasure-hunters, 62–64.

Cinema man sinks with submarine, 150.

_City of Paris_, wreck of, 182.

Clock, a maddening, 152.

Clothes of diver, 39.

Clovelly harbour, 199.

Clyde, 132.

Clyde, cost of deepening, 195, 196.

Code, diver’s, 40.

Coffer-dam round _Maine_, 213.

Coffer-dam, used on _St. Paul_, 170.

Coffer-dam, use in salvage work, 166.

Coincidence, the strange case of _Gladiator_ and _St. Paul_, 167.

Collision between _War Knight_ and _O. B. Jennings_, 160–163.

Collision mats, 205.

Collision that cost £1,000,000, 163.

Commander Kay, 111.

Compressed air and sunken battleship, 85.

Compressed air, breathing, 35, 36.

Compressed air raises battleship, 90.

Compressed air, tools worked by, 194.

Compressed air, used on H.M.S. _Britannia_, 172.

Concrete, ship patched with, 180.

Concrete, used to salve ship, 175.

Congress and loss of _Maine_, 214.

Conning tower, the protruding hand, 157.

Continental markets destroyed, 114.

Convoy, accident to, 161.

Cork packed into battleship to give buoyancy, 88.

Cost of salvage operation on H.M.S. _Gladiator_, 167.

Cradle of cables for U.44, 125.

Craft, lifting, 126, 127.

Crew drowned by Germans, 119.

Crime, a German submarine, 120.

Cunningham, Commander, 183.

Currents hinder salvage operations, 30.

Currents play pranks, 29.

Damage to H.M.S. _Gladiator_, 165.

Damant, Commander, 68.

Davis, Commander G., and U.44, 123.

Davis, Commander, raises minesweeper, 124.

Davis, Commander, wins D.S.C., 129.

Davis, R. H., 41.

Deepening channels, method of, 195.

Deepening Clyde, cost of, 195, 196.

Depth beats divers, 47.

Depth charge, 117.

Depth, greatest, ever reached by diver, 155, 156, 157.

Derricks, floating, 170.

Detectives, deep-sea, 117.

Diamond drills used on Clyde channel, 195.

Director of Naval Salvage, his calmness, 98.

Disaster of K.13, 132.

Diver and sea pressure, 35.

Diver attacked by octopus, 202.

Diver buried alive, 208.

Diver caught at 200 feet, 156.

Diver crushed by pressure, 154.

Diver, difficulty of movement at great depths, 155.

Diver explores flooded Severn tunnel, 54.

Diver Girvan, his fight on seabed, 200.

Diver, how clothed, 38, 39.

Diver Jones, his fight on seabed, 200.

Diver Lambert, 50.

Diver offers his hand to shark, 203.

Diver Penk helps to salve specie, 61.

Diver restores a cathedral, 213.

Diver Ridyard salves treasure from a depth of 156 feet, 61.

Diver, sea plays with, 72.

Diver, why he cannot whistle, 73.

Diver works in darkness, 214.

Divers and inquisitive fish, 202, 203.

Divers and mud, 204.

Divers beaten by depth, 47.

Diver’s boots, weight of, 39.

Divers breathe compressed air, 35.

Diver’s code, 40.

Divers communicate with submarine prisoners, 137.

Divers discover the lost K.13, 136.

Divers, fat and slim, 34, 35.

Diver’s feat in Severn tunnel, 50–55.

Divers feed submarine prisoners, 137.

Divers fight on seabed, 200.

Divers gassed, 178–179.

Divers lash pontoons to wreck, 89.

Diver’s luck, 15.

Diver’s palsy, its cause, 36.

Diver’s physique, 34.

Divers, risks of, 49.

Divers share nearly £6,000, 78.

Diver’s strange experience, 69.

Divers survey wreck of _Leonardo da Vinci_, 82.

Divers use hacksaws, 190.

Divers use pneumatic chisels, 165.

Divers wear masks, 170.

Divers work at 190 feet, 157.

Divers work in mud, 168.

Divers work on Belgian coast, 116.

Diving bell crushed by pressure, 154.

Diving code, 40.

Diving dress, 39.

Diving dress, all metal, 42.

Diving dresses, ancient, 41.

Diving, rate of ascent, 37.

Diving record, British, 38.

Diving record, British, date of, 68.

Diving, science of, 34.

Diving strains, 34, 35.

Diving to 304 feet, 155.

Diving tragedy, 178.

Donegal, 65.

Doubloons discovered, 18.

Dredger, salving a, 188.

Dredging a 1½-mile channel, 89.

Dress, diving, 39.

Drill worked by air, 194.

Drills, diamond, used on Clyde, 195.

Drink, a lucky, 64.

Duke of Argyll, 21.

Duncan, Admiral, 22.

Dutch claim _Lutine_, 24.

Dynamite, cutting ship in two with, 181.

Electric cable laid 1½ miles out to sea, 84.

Electric magnet, 210.

Electric pump, invention of, 103, 104.

Electric pump, weight of, 104.

Electric torch, wonder of, 169.

Electricity helps to salve battleship, 84.

Emergency patches, 206.

Enderslie Rock, 195.

Enemy buried at sea, 130.

Engineer patches ship with concrete, 180.

Engines raise a ship, 164, 165.

Ensor, Henry, 94, 186–194.

Entombed in submarine, 133.

Entombed miners rescued, 42.

Erostarbe, Angel, his diving record, 48.

Escapes from sunken submarines, 139, 145, 146–152.

Explosion off Waterford, 122.

F.4, American submarine disaster, 152.

F.4, discovery of, 153.

F.4, plans for recovery, 153.

Falmouth, _City of Paris_ towed to, 183.

Faruffini, General, 93.

Ferrati, General, 81.

Fight on seabed between divers, 200.

Finisterre, Cape, 46.

Fire, disaster to oil tankers, 161.

Fire in sunken submarine, 151.

Fish and divers, 202, 203.

Fish scent death, 204.

Fishing for treasure, 24.

Flags stuck in maps, 99.

_Fleswick_, salving the, 187.

Floating dock proposed for raising _Leonardo da Vinci_, 81.

Flooding of Severn tunnel, 51.

Floor of gold, 61.

_Florencia’s_ treasure, 19.

Fluess, 51–53

_Flying Dutchman_, 167.

Folkestone, 163.

Food supplies restricted in Britain, 96.

Fortune from a rumour, 15.

Fortune saved by a drink, 64.

Foundering ship salved, 197–199.

Fox, Francis, his work on Winchester Cathedral, 213.

French warships and spontaneous combustion, 216.

Fryatt, Captain, 159.

Funnels, folding, on British submarine, 131.

Furness Withy, 183.

Gale cheats salvors, 31.

Gale snaps cables, 154.

Gale stops salvage of U-boat, 126.

Gales baffle salvors of _Laurentic_, 75.

Gales stop salvage work, 108.

Gales, strength of, 8.

Gallantry of salvors, 199.

Gardiner, Captain, 28.

Gareloch, 132, 188.

Garonne, 181.

Gear lost, 7.

_General Goethals_, 143.

German mines off Waterford, 121.

German ships seized, 114.

German submarine campaign, 96.

German submarine raised from 190 feet, 158.

German submarine sinks oil tanker, 163.

German submarines netted, 116.

German submarines, risk of salving, 128.

Germans block Ostend harbour, 116.

Germans buried at sea, 130.

Germans drown crew of _Belgian Prince_, 119.

Germans fail to raise _Vindictive_, 115.

Germans miss lifebelts, 120.

Germans sink ships at sight, 96.

Germans torpedo British battleship, 173.

Germans torpedo merchantmen, 96.

Gianelli, Major, work on _Leonardo da Vinci_, 83.

Giant bollards made from boilers, 191.

Giant wooden frame supports battleship, 91.

Girvan, Diver, dramatic fight on seabed, 200.

_Gladiator_, wreck of H.M.S., 165–167.

_Goeben_, 180.

Gold, floor of, 61.

Goodhart, Commander F. H. M., D.S.O., 134.

Goodhart, Commander, his heroic death, 135.

Grain, action of sea on, 178.

Grapnels, 124.

Great War, salvage work in, 94–116.

Great War, ships salved and their value, 111.

Gun-turrets, detaching submerged, 87.

Gwynne pumps, 104.

Hacksaws, used by divers, 190.

_Hamilla Mitchell_, wreck of, 58–64.

Hammer worked by air, 194.

Havana harbour, loss of _Maine_ in, 214.

Herbert, Commander Godfrey, D.S.O., 133.

Herbert, Commander, his escape from sunken K.13, 135.

Honolulu, 152.

Honolulu, tide at, 153.

Hydroscope, 210.

_Hypatia_, wreck of, 9.

Imprisoned in submarine, 146–152.

Incas of Peru, 11.

Inchkeith, 172.

Inquisitive fish, 202, 203.

_Intrepid_, wreck, 208.

Invention, an American salvage, 206.

Invention of electric pump, 103.

Invention of modern diving dress, 41.

Isle of Mull, 19.

Italian Naval Engineering Corps, 81.

Italian salvage feat, 79.

Italians dredge 1½-mile channel, 89.

Jackson, T. G., his work on Winchester Cathedral, 213.

Japan raises sunken Russian warships, 211.

Jellicoe, Lieutenant-Colonel R. V., 175.

Jones, Diver, his fight under the sea, 200.

Junks, chased by, 62.

K.13, loss of, 131–140.

K.14, 134.

Kay, Commander, 108.

Kay, Commander, and K.13, 137.

Kidd, Captain, 11.

Lagoons, scenes at bottom of, 204.

Lake Huron, treasure-hunting in, 154.

Lambert, Alexander, 50.

Lambert and Severn tunnel, 50–55.

Lambert explores flooded Severn tunnel, 54.

Lambert finds treasure of _Alphonso XII._, 57.

Lamps, submarine, 157.

Launchways, their use, 187.

_Laurentic_, blasting operations, 74, 75.

_Laurentic_ crushed by sea, 72.

_Laurentic_, depth of wreck, 67.

_Laurentic_, difficulties of salving treasure, 72–78.

_Laurentic_ disaster, 65.

_Laurentic_, length of time divers can work, 73, 74.

_Laurentic_, lives lost, 67.

_Laurentic_, value of treasure aboard, 66.

Leak stopped by oakum, 205.

Leaks obscured by oil, 86.

_Leonardo da Vinci_, loss of, 79.

_Leonardo da Vinci_, armament and cost, 80.

_Leonardo da Vinci_, plans for salving, 81.

_Leonardo da Vinci_ floats upside-down, 90.

Leuconna Rock, 58.

Leverhulme, Lord, 13.

Lifebelts, concealed, 120.

Lifting craft, linked, 207.

Lifting methods, 125.

Lifting the _Brussels_, 159.

Lifting vessels, modern, 126.

Lighthouses, 2, 3.

Lightships, 2.

_Lion_, H.M.S., after Jutland, 96.

Liverpool Salvage Association, 94, 165.

Liverpool, treasure landed at, 77.

Lloyd’s and _Lutine_, 23.

Lloyd’s great loss, 23.

Locating leaks in battleship, 86.

Lodge, Captain, offers to salve specie of _Hamilla Mitchell_, 58.

London Salvage Association, 94.

Lucky escape of salvors, 128, 129.

Lucky treasure-hunt, 15.

Lundy Island, 172.

_Lusitania_, chances of salvage, 212.

_Lutine_, amount of treasure recovered, 26.

_Lutine_, blasting operations, 31.

_Lutine_ buried, 29.

_Lutine_, capture of, 22.

_Lutine_ rediscovered, 29.

_Lutine_, treasure shipped, 23.

_Lutine_, wreck of, 23.

_Lutine’s_ bell, 26.

Macdonald invents electric pump, 103.

Magnet, electric, 210.

_Maine_, destruction of, 214–216.

Malin Head, 66.

Marine salvage in wartime, 94.

Markets destroyed, 114.

Marseilles, octopus attacks diver at, 202.

Meat, handling decayed, 171.

Merchantmen armed during war, 97.

Merritt and Chapman, 167.

Method of raising vessels from seabed, 125.

Methods of British Salvage Section, 97.

Mexiddo reef, 46.

_Milwaukee_, wreck of, 181.

Mine destroys U.44, 123.

Mine-laying from submarine, 121.

Mine-sweeping, 122.

Minefield, adrift in, 162.

Minefield at Waterford, 121.

Miners entombed, 42, 43.

Minesweeper, sinking of, 124.

Models for salvage operations, 83.

_Montagu_, wreck of, 171–172.

_Montgomery_, wreck of, 181.

Morse Code, 137.

Mud and divers, 204.

Mud grips battleship, 90.

Mull, Isle of, 19.

Mystery of _Florencia_, 19.

Napoleon, 25.

Naval divers and _Laurentic_, 65–78.

Naval Salvage, director of, 95.

Netherlands Government and Lloyd’s, 25.

New York, tanker caught off, 163.

Nitrogen, its effect on divers, 36.

Nordstrom, Captain, 161.

_Norton_, stranding of, 183.

_O. B. Jennings_, 160–163.

O.5, sinking of American submarine, 151.

Oakum stops leak, 205.

Oats cause tragedy, 178.

_Oceana_, blasting operations, 50.

_Oceana_, difficulties of salving treasure, 50.

_Oceana_, wreck of, 49.

Octopus attacks diver, 202.

Oil hinders divers, 84.

Oil obscures leaks in battleship, 86.

Oil salved from tanker, 163.

Oil tankers take fire, 161–163.

_Onward_, scuttling of, 163.

Ostend, 115.

Ostend, how Germans bottled up harbour, 116.

Overturned ship, methods of salvage, 164.

Ownership of war wrecks, 112.

Palsy, diver’s, 36.

Patch, standard, 100.

Patches, emergency, 206.

Patching battleship, 85.

Penk, Diver, 59.

Periscope, 137.

Peru, gold of, 11.

Peruvian treasure, 11.

_Philadelphia_, see _City of Paris_.

Phosphate, island of, 14.

Pino, Cavaliere, inventor of hydroscope, 210.

Pirates, chased by, 62–64.

Pit disaster near Falkirk, 42.

Pizarro, 11.

Pneumatic chisels used by divers, 165.

Pomeroy, Captain H., 176.

Pontoon raises 800 tons, 177.

Pontoons, 116.

Pontoons and _Araby_, 177.

Pontoons and salvage operations, 89.

Pontoons, assist to raise the _Gladiator_, 166.

Pontoons, how used, 89.

Pontoons used in salving F.4, 153.

Port Arthur, raising Russian fleet at, 211.

Portsmouth, 167.

Pressure and divers, 35.

Pressure crushes diver, 154.

Pressure, how it affects diver, 155.

Propeller shaft cut into bollards, 191.

Pumps, electric, weight of, 104.

Pumps keep ship afloat, 105.

Pumps, sand, 29.

Pumps, types of, 103.

Pumps _versus_ torpedoes, 103.

Pumps, wonderful reliability of, 105.

Quay, threatened destruction of Folkestone, 163.

Queenstown, 94.

_Racer_, salvage vessel, 65.

Racing yacht salved, 204.

Railway engines raise a ship, 164, 165.

Recompression chamber, its uses, 70.

Record depth from which treasure has been recovered, 48.

Record, diving, 38.

Record, twelve-hour diving, 137.

Record weight raised, 158, 159.

Record, world’s diving, 155.

Redding pit disaster, 42.

Refloating H.M.S. _Britannia_, 172.

Refloating the _Timbo_, 186, 187.

Refrigerator, unpleasant task in a, 171.

Rescue of crew of submarine S.5, 145.

Rescue of survivors of K.13, 139.

Ridyard, Diver, 59.

Righting a battleship, 92.

Risk of salvage work, 8.

Risk of salving German submarines, 128.

Rock-cutter, 195.

Rock reveals a fortune, 13.

Rocks blasted away to salve ship, 183.

Ropes, breaking strains of, 192.

Ropes, giant, 192.

Ropes, steel, 191, 192.

Rosyth, 159.

Royal Exchange, 46.

_Royal George_, salvage operations, 200.

Rust handicaps divers, 190.

St. Bees Head, 105.

St. Helena, 25.

_St. Paul_, collision with H.M.S. _Gladiator_, 165.

_St. Paul_ converted into troopship, 167.

_St. Paul_ overturns, 167.

_St. Paul_, salvage operations on, 168.

S.5, discovery of, 144.

S.5, rescue of crew, 145.

S.5, strange accident to the American submarine, 141.

Salvage and Towage Company, 183.

Salvage award of £22,000, 184.

Salvage concerns, 94.

Salvage idea, a strange, 212.

Salvage invention, an American, 206.

Salvage lighter nearly founders, 128.

Salvage men, lucky escape of, 128, 129.

Salvage of _Araby_, 174–179.

Salvage of _Seuvic_, 182.

Salvage of the _Norton_, 183.

Salvage officer’s clever feat, 185, 186.

Salvage on Belgian coast, 115.

Salvage operations aided by pontoons, 89.

Salvage operations on _St. Paul_, 168.

Salvage operations on _Westmoreland_, 108–111.

Salvage problem, 4.

Salvage records, American, 156.

Salvage Section as detectives, 117.

Salvage Section, laying mines, 95.

Salvage Section, method of working, 97.

Salvage Section, nets English Channel, 96.

Salvage Section, ships salved by, 111.

Salvage stations round Britain, 97.

Salvage steamer, cost of upkeep, 184.

Salvage work, risk of, 8.

Salvage work stopped by gales, 108.

Salved by blasting operations, 183.

Salved five times, 10.

Salving a battleship, 79–93.

Salving a battleship by compressed air, 85.

Salving a racing yacht, 204.

Salving a ship in halves, 177, 181.

Salving battleship upside-down, 90.

Salving £500,000 from _Laurentic_, 73.

Salving H.M.S. _Britannia_, 172.

Salving H.M.S. _Gladiator_, 165.

Salving K.13, 131–140.

Salving _Leonardo da Vinci_, cost of, 93.

Salving oil from tanker, 163.

Salving overturned ship, 164.

Salving shells from sunken battleship, 84.

Salving ship with concrete, 175.

Salving the _Fleswick_, 187.

Salving the _Maine_, 214–216.

Salving the _Silurus_, 187–194.

Salving the _Timbo_, 186, 187.

Salving treasure, diver’s reward, 58.

Salving treasure of _Alphonso XII._, 57.

Salvors balance ship, 111.

Salvors carry submarine 40 miles, 158.

Salvors chased by pirates, 62–64.

Salvors foiled by bad weather, 47.

Salvors, gallant feat of, 199.

Salvors of _Laurentic’s_ treasure baffled by gales, 75.

Salvors, tricks of, 205.

Sand, battle with, 30.

Sand-pump, 18-inch, used on _Laurentic_ operations, 76.

Sand-pumps, 29.

Sand-pumps, when they choke, 76.

Sandbanks, submerged, 29.

Sandown Bay, 162.

Science of diving, 34.

Sea ablaze, 161.

Sea crushes _Laurentic_, 72.

Sea-growths, their beauty, 204.

Sea plays with diver, 72.

Sea pressure, effect on divers, 35.

Sea water as ballast, 111.

Secret German orders recovered by divers, 157.

Secret papers in U.44, 129

_Seuvic_, wreck of, 182.

Severn tunnel, cause of flooding, 51, 55.

Severn tunnel, diver’s feat in, 50–55.

Severn tunnel explored by diver, 54.

Severn tunnel, flooding of, 51.

Shanghai, 58.

Shark and diver, 203.

Shells protected by oil, 84.

Shells salved from _Leonardo da Vinci_, 84.

Ship ashore, method of refloating, 185.

Ship breaks in two, 177.

Ship kept afloat by pumps, 105.

Ship patched with concrete, 180.

Ship, question of balance, 111.

Ship salved by blasting away rocks, 183.

Ship salved five times, 10.

Ship surgery, 181.

Ship torpedoed three times, 101.

Shipbreakers buy wreck of _Gladiator_, 167.

Shipbreakers buy wreck of _Montagu_, 172.

Shipping, high cost in war, 113.

Shipping slump, 113.

Ships, how destroyed, 3.

Ships, increase in tonnage, 114.

Ships insured by British Government, 96.

Ships salved by Admiralty Salvage Section, 111.

Ships salved by air bags, 206.

Ships salved in Great War, their value, 111.

Ships seized from Germany, 114.

Ships sunk at sight during war, 96.

Ships, wonder of, 4.

Shot-rope, 37.

Shutter Rock, 171.

Siebe, Gorman & Company help to save Winchester Cathedral, 213.

Siebe, Gorman & Co. Ltd., 41.

Siebe invents diving dress, 41.

Sieve, giant, 30.

Sifting seabed, 30.

_Silurus_, cost of salvage operations, 194.

_Silurus_, plans to salve, 189.

_Silurus_, wreck of, 187–194.

Silver bars recovered, 48.

Sinking of K.13, 132.

_Skyro_, wreck of, 45–47.

Slings, U-boat carried 40 miles in, 158.

Slump in shipping, 113.

Smoke helmet, 42.

Soldier patches ship with concrete, 180.

Solent, 165.

Spain loses Cuba, 214.

Spanish-American War, cause of, 214.

Spanish doubloons, 18.

Spanish galleon, 15.

Spanish galleon destroyed, 20.

Spontaneous combustion and _Maine_ disaster, 216.

Spy and burning troopship, 163.

Stag Rocks, _Seuvic_ wrecked on, 182.

Standard patch, 100.

State as underwriters, 96.

Steel cable, giant, 191.

Steel cables, breaking strains of, 192.

Steel cables snapped by gale, 154.

Steel plates, cutting under sea, 169.

Steel tombs, submarines as, 118.

Storms defeat salvage, 5, 7.

Storms snap steel cables, 7.

Storms, strength of, 8.

Stranded ships, towing off, 186, 187.

Stranding of _Norton_, 183.

Submarine, an American adventure, 149.

Submarine campaign, 96.

Submarine carried 40 miles, 158.

Submarine carried over sandbar, 129.

Submarine commander’s dilemma, 150.

Submarine, dropping a, 129.

Submarine F.4, disaster to, 152.

Submarine flash lamp and K.13, 137.

Submarine lamps, 157.

Submarine menace and British Salvage Section, 97.

Submarine, mine-laying, 121.

Submarine O.5, sinks in 40 feet of water, 151.

Submarine S.5, her strange accident, 141.

Submarine scenery, 204.

Submarine sinks oil tanker, 163.

Submarine tragedies seen by divers, 118.

Submarine with folding funnels, 131.

Submarines as steel tombs, 118.

Submarines, netting, 116.

Submarines, wonderful escapes from sunken, 139, 145, 146–152.

Submerged gun-turrets, detaching, 87.

Survivors of _Belgian Prince_ atrocity, 120.

Survivors of K.13, 139.

Taranto, 79, 84.

Taranto dry dock, depth of, 87.

Telephone, submarine, 40.

Telephone that floats, 142.

Temperature of 6700 degrees under water, 169.

Texel, 22.

Thermit bomb, 163.

Tide, how it helps lifting operations, 127.

Tides and salvage, 5.

Timber frame upholds battleship, 91.

Timber jackets for pontoons, 153.

Timber props to strengthen wreck, 110.

Timber structure, remarkable, 90.

Timber used in salvage work, 90.

Timbers support 20,000 tons, 91.

Timbers withstand 225 tons pressure per square inch, 91.

_Timbo_, wreck of, 186.

Tirpitz, 117.

Tobermory Bay, 20.

Tobermory treasure-hunt, 19.

Tonnage, increase in, 114.

Tools used by divers, 194.

Torpedoed ships, how their positions were noted, 99.

Torpedoes found in U.44, 130.

Torpedoing at sight, 96.

Torpedoing of _Westmoreland_, 106.

Towing battleship upside-down, 90.

Towing off stranded ships, 186, 187.

Tragedies of sunken submarines, 118.

Tragedy caused by oats, 178.

Tragedy of oil tankers, 161.

Trapped in sunken submarine, 131, 146, 152.

Trapping air to salve a ship, 85.

Treasure and business men, 11.

Treasure, Captain Kidd’s, 11.

Treasure-hunt at Tobermory, 19.

Treasure-hunt of British Navy, 65–78.

Treasure-hunting finance, 12.

Treasure of _Alphonso XII._, 57.

Treasure of _Florencia_, 19.

Treasure of Incas, 11.

Treasure of _Laurentic_, value found, 77.

Treasure of _Lutine_, 23.

Treasure recovered from _Lutine_, 26.

Treasure recovered from _Oceana_, 50.

Treasure-hunters beaten, 32.

Treasure-hunters chased by pirates, 62–64.

Tricks of salvors, 205.

Tripods, use in raising ships upright, 164.

Troopship, scuttling of a, 163.

Troopships protected by nets, 96.

Trunkway, 110.

Tug of war between wreck and railway engines, 164, 165.

Tugs tow battleship upside-down, 90.

Tyne, _Milwaukee_ towed to, 182.

U-boat carried 40 miles, 158.

U-boat sinks oil tanker off New York, 163.

U-boat, why Admiralty salved it, 124.

U-boats and British Salvage Section, 97.

U-boats, netting, 116.

U.44 atrocity, 118.

U.44 carried three-quarters of a mile, 127.

U.44, depth of wreck, 124.

U.44, destruction of, 123.

U.44, its mission, 121.

U.44, method of finding, 124.

Umbrella patch, 206.

Underwriters lose £900,000, 23.

Vancouver, 32.

_Vindictive_, full of cement, 115.

_Vindictive_, German failure to raise, 115.

_Vindictive_, mines aboard when sunk, 115.

_Vindictive_, problems of raising, 115.

_Vindictive_ raised, 116.

Vlieland, 25.

Wagenfuhr, Paul, 119.

War interrupts food supplies in Britain, 96.

_War Knight_, 160–163.

War wrecks and British Government, 112.

War-time salvage depots, 97.

War-time shipbuilding, 114.

Water as ballast, 111.

Water _versus_ air, 35, 36.

Waterford, 121.

Weather, influence of, 5.

Weather prevents salvage work, 108.

_Westmoreland_, 105.

_Westmoreland_, depth of wreck, 107.

_Westmoreland_, extent of damage to, 106.

_Westmoreland_, fight to save, 106, 107.

_Westmoreland_, sinking of, 107.

_Westmoreland_ torpedoed, 106.

_Westmoreland_, value of, 105.

Williamson, Mr., his invention for filming seabed, 211.

Winchester Cathedral saved by diver, 213.

Wireless mast shot away, 118.

Wireless romance, 145.

Work stopped by gales, 108.

Wreck, balancing a, 111.

Wreck, method of finding, 124.

Wreck of _Alphonso XII._, 56.

Wreck of _Araby_, 174.

Wreck of _City of Paris_, 182.

Wreck of _Florencia_, 19.

Wreck of _Gladiator_, cost of salving, 167.

Wreck of _Hamilla Mitchell_, 58.

Wreck of H.M.S. _Britannia_, 172.

Wreck of H.M.S. _Gladiator_, 165.

Wreck of H.M.S. _Montagu_, 171.

Wreck of _Hypatia_, 9.

Wreck of _Intrepid_, 208.

Wreck of _Laurentic_, 67.

Wreck of _Leonardo da Vinci_ surveyed, 82.

Wreck of _Lutine_, 23.

Wreck of _Maine_, 214.

Wreck of _Milwaukee_, 181.

Wreck of _Montgomery_, 181.

Wreck of _O. B. Jennings_, 163.

Wreck of _Oceana_, 49.

Wreck of _Onward_, 163.

Wreck of _Seuvic_, 182.

Wreck of _Silurus_, 187.

Wreck of _Skyro_, 45.

Wreck of _Timbo_, 186.

Wreck of U.44, depth of, 124.

Wreck of _War Knight_, 162.

Wreck of _Westmoreland_, 107.

Wreck patched with concrete, 180.

Wreck uprighted by railway engines, 164, 165.

Wreck, working cables under, 125.

Wrecks, annual value of, 3.

Wrecks, destruction of, 3.

Wrecks, effect of sea on, 114.

Wrecks indicated by flags in maps, 99.

Wrecks, method of raising, 125.

Wrecks salved after Armistice, 112.

_Wrestler_, H.M.S., 77.

Young, Commodore Sir F. W., 95, 98, 115, 156.

Zeebrugge, 115.

Zogria Island, 183.

Zuyder Zee, 26.

_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_

THE ROMANCE OF EXCAVATION

A RECORD OF THE AMAZING DISCOVERIES IN EGYPT, ASSYRIA, TROY, CRETE AND ELSEWHERE

_With Twenty-nine Illustrations in half-tone._ _Second Edition._  _Crown 8vo._  _6s. 6d. net._

SOME PRESS OPINIONS

_Daily Telegraph._--“A most useful and popularly written introduction to one of the great subjects before the world to-day. It is a stupendous and inspiring story.”

_Sunday Times._--“A most fascinating book. Mr. Masters tells the story of these pioneer excavators in a remarkably vivid way. The numerous photographs add considerably to the value of his book. Mr. Masters has done his work very well indeed.”

_Daily News._--“A book that will equally delight the grown-ups and the small fry.”

_New Statesman._--“An imaginative boy, into whose hands this book chanced to fall, would in all probability start digging up the garden within a week. Mr. Masters adds to the learning of a scholar the enthusiasm of a schoolboy. The book may confidently be recommended to readers of all ages.”

_Evening Standard._--“There is adventure and romance sufficient to satisfy the most eager spirit in the pursuit of the science of excavation.”

_Times Literary Supplement._--“Pleasant and readable.”

_Graphic._--“It enables the reader to capture the thrill of the romance of digging up the world’s history....”

_Review of Reviews._--“Tales of treasure trove and adventure are always attractive, and Mr. Masters has made good use of the innumerable romantic adventures of archæologists.”

_Cassell’s Weekly._--“A most entrancing book.... We turn over the pages with eagerness, and everywhere we find something that attracts us.”

_Illustrated London News._--“A useful and pleasant book.”

_Guardian._--“A quite delightful survey of the history of excavation.”

_Near East._--“It is a difficulty to overpraise this elegant little picture-story in the space at our disposal. The little book is really a champagne to the most jaded mind. The story is so simply told; the author’s gentle enthusiasm is irresistible; his shop-window is full of jewels; you should not pass it by.”

_Glasgow Herald._--“The task which Mr. Masters has set before him he has splendidly accomplished. No school library should be without this book....”

_Sphere._--“Popular and readable.”

_Gentlewoman._--“A book of pure delight.”

_Contemporary Review._--“A book that will interest all those on whom the lure of discovery has taken hold.”

_Public Opinion._--“A handy book on this subject should find a large market.”

_Scotsman._--“Told in a popular form that should render it comprehensible to a wide audience.”

_Court Journal._--“A book that fathers can read and discuss with their growing sons.”

_Education._--“Admirably fitted for prizes for intelligent students.”

_Egyptian Gazette._--“So much interest and value to the great public.”

JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD LTD., VIGO ST., W. 1

Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left unbalanced.

Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to the corresponding illustrations.

The index was not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page references.