EXPERIENCES OF A DIVER.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1092, 27 January 1872, Page 2

EXPERIENCES OF A DIVER.

I have lately had the pleasure of an interview with Mr J. Wood, of Herne Bay, who has followed the business of a diver for upwards of twenty-two years, and who has now retired. Mr Wood made his first start in life by an extraordinary, and, as it turned out, a very lucky piece of diving. If the reader will look at the map of Ireland, he will see that outside Belfast Lough, and a little to the south-west, opposite Donaghadee, arc situated the Copeland Islands. It so happened that a Wbitestable man was a coast-guard in this district. He heard a legentT that a ship laden with a heavy cargo of silver had been wrecked off the Copeland Islands some half a century ago. Ho therefore communicated with some of his friends at Whiteatablo, who wero divers. Mr Wood and four others accordingly put their diving dresses on board a vessel, and sailed from Whitestable to Donaghadee. The story they heard when they got there was, that the wrecked vessel was in the slave trade, and that she bad on board when she struck on the rock a number of slaves, and a considerable sum of money in the form of silver dollars. Nothing would have been ever known of the wreck had not somebody discovered human legs projecting above the Bnrface of the water. It appears that the people on board the ship had tried to escape; they had filled their shirt-sleeves with dollars, bat in getting up the rocks many of them had fallen back and met with an untimely end, as the weight of the dollars had kept their heads under water. No one had ever disturbed the wreck since it happened, so Mr Wood and his friends set to work to find out where it was. They put on their diving dresses, and for two or three days walked about to and fro at the bottom ofjthe sea in about forty feet of water searching for the treasure. This they did by clearing the weeds and turning over the stones with crowbars, and feeling for dollars with their hands, as the water mos too thick to see. the wreck itself had entirely perished through the lapso of time. After a long and careful search they came upon the dollars; they were spread about among the stones, but many had slipped down among a heap of iron which had formed the ballast of the ship. Many of the dollars were worn away thin by action of the waves. Some were lying separate, others in great lumps like rocks soldered together by iron, certainly in some cases the handcuffs used for the slaves. Some days the divers got 200 dollars, sometimes 300, bometimes 1000 ; the best day they got 5000. In all, the number of dollars they got up from the wreck was 25,000, a considerable sum of money when reduced to English pounds. Mr Wood showed me one of the dollars, which he always carries about with him. The following is the inscription : On the one side, Carolus iiij, Dei Gratia, 1797. HisponetlndßexMSltFm." The coin is about the size of an old five-shilling piece. The " Diver's Ar-ns," near the clock tower at Home Bay, of which Mr Wood is proprietor, owes its existence to the discovery of the dollars. Mr Wood had on this occasion a curious underwater adventure. One of the divers complained that he was annoyed by a lobster, and could not work. Mr Wood learned the whereabouts of the lobster, and went down after him. He soon after discovered Mr Lobßter sitting under a rock, looking as savage as a lobster can look. His feelers were pointed well forward, and he held out his two great claws wide open, in a threatening attitude. Wood knowing the habit of lobsters, gave the fellow t his crowbar, which he immediately nipped with his claws. Then watehiDg his opportunity he paused his signal lino over the lobster's tail, mado it fast, and signalled to the men above to haul him up. This they did, and instantly away went Mr Lobster (lying up through the water into the air above, with his claws still expanded and as scared as a lobster could be. The divers had a visit from a great conger eel ; he was an immense fellow, and kept swimming around Wood, but would not come near him. Wood was afraid of his hand being bitten, as a conger's bite is very bad. He once knew a diver whose finger was seized by a conger*. The brute took all the flesh off the man's finger. He is a very dangerous animal in the water. However, this one kept swimming around Wood, so he took his clasp knife out and tried to stab him, but it would not come near enough to be knifed. It was a long time before the conger would go away, and even after he had gone away Wood would not go on working, because ho was not sure he was really gone for good, and it mis;ht have come ont of somo corner at any minute and nipped his fingers.— Frank Buckland in Land and Water..