192 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[January 1, 1915. 



Our own naval authorities had made some experiments, and 

 they found that compressed air could be stowed in tanks and 

 thence fed directly to the submerged workers toiling at best 

 in water of moderate depths. The problem for the salvage 

 engineers in the present instance was to amplify this and to 

 make it equal to the demands of several divers operating be- 

 tween 140 and 160 teet below the surface of the tide. There- 

 fore, on the schooner "Marie Josephine," the salvors' float- 

 ing base, two big air tanks were installed, and then steam- 

 driven compressors, instead of hand-propelled pumps, were 

 utilized to store the air in sufficient measure to meet liberally 

 every condition with a generous surplus. The armored 

 rubber air hose was attached to these tanks with suitable in- 

 tervening valves which could be manipulated to feed the air 

 to the divers at just the pressures indicated by suitably sen- 

 sitive gages. One man at a valve with two outlets sufficed 

 to attend a couple of divers, and this not only simplified op- 

 erations, but added greatlj to the securitj of the nun. 



Position of "Empress of Ireland" and Route r.i Whii ii 

 Divers Entered Hull. 



The removal of the mail pouches was not a particularly 

 troublesome work, and the recovery of the bars of silver bul- 

 lion was only a little bit harder, because each ingot was han- 

 dled separately and was dragged out of the strong hold by 

 means of a hoist rigged on the attending surface vessel. A 

 canvas bag with a framework of bar steel was fashioned, and 

 a hole in the bottom of this bag permitted the water to 

 escape freely. One by one the ingots were placed in this 

 receptacle and guided by the divers out of the strong room 

 and thence through the two succeeding doorways into the 

 straight passage leading outward to the hole cut in the ves- 

 sel's side. The pull on the connecting line was nicely reg- 

 ulated by telephone directions dispatched by the divers. The 

 really serious undertaking was that involved in getting out 

 the purser's safe, which had been set into a special niche 

 built for it in the corner of the strong room. The divers had 

 to dislodge this strong box by means of crowbars and then 



to pass around it a chain sling to which was attached a smalt 

 but strong wire rope. This line was then led carefully around 

 pulleys at each sharp turn and provision was made for se- 

 curing or "stopping" the cable at frequent intervals as the 

 safe was steered along its round-about path and over and up 

 the sharply slanting and slippery deck of the steamer. It 

 was needful that the pull exerted by the hoisting engine 

 should be uniform, lest a sudden jerk part the wire rope and 

 endanger the lives of the divers piloting the safe. If that 

 cable had snapped and cut the rubber suit of either of the 

 men it would probably have meant certain death, while to- 

 have been caught or squeezed by the runaway sajfe would. 

 have proved equally disastrous. Xone of these mishaps oc- 

 curred, thanks to the exhaustive preparations made and the 

 thoroughness and the skill with which every manoeuvre was 

 carried out. 



In kindred undertakings at lesser depths the practice has 

 been to blast away the ship's structure intervening between ! 

 the free water and the objective — this, assuming that the 

 water be clear enough for light to come down from the sun. 

 In the present case the depths of the St. Lawrence were very 

 dark, and to have blasted the steel work would have produced 

 shattered plates and tangled frames that would all too easily 

 have either caught or cut the air hose and the divers' life- 

 lines. So, too, explosions of this sort might have desecrated 

 the bodies of imprisoned passengers. Therefore, the salvors 

 set for themselves a harder task, a finer job of under-water 

 engineering: but, thanks to these preparations, they accom- 

 plished all that they set out to do. Not only were the safe, 

 the bullion and the mail pouches salved, but 170-odd bodies- 

 were recovered. 



These salvage operations on the sunken "Empress of Ire- 

 land" stand without a parallel in the art of under-water work, 

 and but for the agency of india rubber in its various applica- 

 tions this masterly achievement would have been out of the 

 question. 



THE RUBBER GROWERS' ASSOCIATION AND THE WAR. 



The Council of the Rubber Growers' Association, of London,, 

 has approved a proposal to raise funds through the member • 

 ship of the association for the purpose of presenting to the War 

 Department a motor ambulance for the use. preferentially, of the 

 Indian Expeditionary Force; such an offer having been made 

 and gratefully accepted. A committee was appointed to carry 

 out the necessary details, composed of — John McEwan, president 

 of the association; A. Bethune and H. K. Rutherford, former 

 presidents ; Sir John Anderson, head of the firm of Guthrie & 

 Co., of Singapore; T. Cuthbertson, the Honorable Everard Field- 

 ing, E. L. Hamilton, John A. Roberts and W. Shakespeare. If 

 sufficient donations are received it is proposed to maintain a 

 chauffeur for the car and to provide running expenses. 



It is proposed also, out of the suggested funds, to present to 

 the war ship "Sydney" of the Australian navy, a life saving 

 collar made from plantation rubber for each member of the per- 

 sonnel of that ship, in recognition of her service to British com- 

 merce in destroying the German cruiser "Emden." 



A BRITISH EIRM IN THE: MARKET FOR EBONITE OR VULCANITE. 



Kemp's Vulcanizing Co.. Limited, of 19 Hardman street. Man- 

 chester. England, is desirous of securing supplies of ebonite or 

 vulcanite goods, which in the past they have purchased in large 

 quantities from Germany, and would be glad to get in touch with 

 American manufacturers of this class of goods. 



It is to be noted that many American rubber manufacturers 

 who had adopted plantation rubber in certain special compounds- 

 are turning to coarse Para. Ceara and Centrals. They took to- 

 the plantation slowly, and will doubtless go back to it with equat 

 slowness. 



