MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 53 



the Missouri could not be raised by human means. They abandoned the 

 enterprise and returned to England. 



The necessities of the case induced Mr. Webster to take hold of the 

 matter, and find a man who would free Gibraltar harbor of that obstruc- 

 tion. He applied to Mr. John E. Gowen, of Boston. When asked by 

 the Secretary, if he could remove the wreck of the frigate, as she lay 

 there in forty-one feet of water, he said he could. When asked if he 

 would enter into $50,000 bonds for the performance of a contract to raise 

 her, he said he would. When asked if he would bind himself to have 

 every stick of the frigate out of the way within three years, he said he 

 would bind himself to accomplish it within six months. A contract was 

 immediately made. Mr. Gowen was already equipped with his subma- 

 rine armor. The removing apparatus remained for him to construct. On 

 reflecting, he decided to blow the frigate to pieces, and lift and remove 

 the fragments in detail. 



The case, on full inquiry and investigation, proved to be one of peculiar 

 difficulty. The sand had accumulated upon the wreck. It was fifteen 

 feet over her. Moreover, the English engineers had hurt the job, and 

 made it much more difficult, by using vast quantities of powder at ran- 

 dom, among the engines and iron work. They had twisted and tangled 

 up the machinery badly. Above the fifteen feet of accumulated sand, 

 was a depth of twenty- sixt feet of water to work through. 



Mr. Gowen devised metal cases, to contain his charges of powder, and 

 which, of course, had to be placed under the frigate's bottom, and through 

 that fifteen feet of sand. These cases were of cast-iron, six feet long, 

 fourteen inches in diameter, and held a charge of two hundred and fifty 

 pounds of powder. At the conical end was a large thread, like that about 

 a post ariger, cast on the case, and to be used in boring into the sand as 

 with an auger. This lower end was cast in a chill, and was so hard and 

 strong, that it stood, in one instance, the test of being bored through a 

 McAdam Street, six feet into the earth. Mr. Gowen took out with him 

 twenty-four of these iron powder cylinders. He used only twelve of 

 them. His divers descended in their armor, pointed the cylinders prop- 

 erly ; these were turned by shafts worked from above, and when located 

 under the vessel's bottom, were fired by an electric battery. 



The quantity of 43,000 pounds of powder was consumed in the work. 

 Of this, full two-thirds were used in blowing off the iron centres and arms 

 from the shaft. She was a side- wheel steamer, and had upon each of the 

 outboard shafts 96 iron arms, which weighed 350 pounds a piece. To 

 break up this complicated mass of powerful iron work, and reduce so as 

 to be lifted, was really the labor to be accomplished. But the work was 

 accomplished, and the utmost stick, and the last visible spike of this great 

 steamer was taken up and carried away. Nothing was left for the sand to 

 form a bar upon, and five months from the day Mr. Goweii began the 

 work, he fully completed and performed his contract. About 1,600 tons 

 of iron was raised, with a large number of oysters that had attached them- 



