86 WONDERS OF THE DEEP 



always occur near the shore. Among the many 

 famous wrecks to be salvaged, apart from those lost 

 during the war, there are the " John Grant," which 

 went down in fourteen fathoms of water off Orkland 

 Island, with a quarter of a million in gold on board: 

 the " Lizard," sunk near Cornwall, with fourteen 

 million pounds in gold; the "San Pedro," sunk off 

 the Central American coast with a large cargo of gold 

 and precious stones, valued at about thirty millions. 

 And then there is that famous fleet of Spanish 

 galleons sunk in Vigo Harbour, in which twenty 

 million pounds in gold and silver were lost. Not one 

 per cent, of this and much other treasure has ever 

 been recovered, and there are thus enough wrecks at 

 a depth to which a man can descend at present to 

 keep divers and treasure-seekers busy for a hundred 

 years to come. 



The great feature of this invention is that the 

 tube will allow the bottom of the sea to be surveyed 

 where the depths are not too great, and for the diver 

 to stay down, there comfortably breathing good air. 

 The adaptation of the apparatus to any moderate 

 depth is merely a matter of engineering detail, which 

 can be worked out without any difficulty. From one 

 of the illustrations accompanying this chapter it will 

 be seen that the apparatus includes a device enabling 

 objects to be picked up from the ocean bed. Utilising 

 this, how easy it would be, for example, to load sponges 

 and pearls into lowered baskets, if you had the sponges 

 and the pearls right before your eyes. And the same 

 thing applies to bars of silver and chests of gold. 



