T T was a most unusual problem that confronted the 

 * American engineer who undertook refloating the 

 "Zeeland," grounded on a mud bank m the St. Law- 

 rence Riv,er, within three days time. The task as 

 to be so accomplished that the steamer could im- 

 mediately proceed to Montreal, taJ?e on war supplies 

 and depart for England; no damage of any zW that 

 would further delay the steamer's sailing was to . be 

 incurred in the refloating. How the vessel was freed 

 by the application of compressed air within ten min- 

 utes after starting the actual operations is a typical in- 

 stance of the adaptation of simple principles to gigan- 

 tic and seemingly impossible enterprises. 



THE skill of the engineer is not 

 always proved by originality; he 

 shows his cunning equally by 

 adaptation of other men's work. In 

 other words, resourcefulness is his trump 

 card. Proof of this capacity to profit by 

 the labors of others was shown in the 

 clever way in which Mr. W. W. Wother- 

 spoon, of New York, succeeded in re- 

 floating a stranded ship of nearly 12,000 

 tons. 



All of us were very much interested in 

 the work of the army engineers when 

 they raised the wreck of the old battle- 

 ship Maine from the bed of Havana 

 Harbor. As can be recalled, a novel 

 cofferdam was built completely around 

 the hulk, fencing it in, so to speak, with 

 an elliptical wall of steel and mud; the 



unit cylinders being filled with the stuff 

 dredged from around the wreck. With 

 this done, the enclosed space was pumped 

 out slowly until the shattered body of the 

 battleship was finally exposed to the air 

 and sunshine. 



But the object of the undertaking was 

 to refloat a large part of the craft so 

 that it could be bodily removed to the 

 deep waters of the Gulf Stream and 

 there sunk for good and all. After 

 draining the cofferdam space the task 

 was not finished by any manner of means, 

 for the tenacious clay underlying the 

 silt of the harbor bottom gripped the 

 ship. To refloat her this hold had to be 

 broken, and the operation was accom- 

 plished in the following manner : Holes 

 were drilled through the bottom of the 



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