DIVING FOR £3,000,000.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 9, Issue 589, 3 December 1920, Page 3

DIVING FOR £3,000,000.

ABOUT A RISKY AND BNPLEAS

ANT JOB.

One hundred and twenty feet below the surface working among a huge mass of debris that once was a ship's hull, and with pressure from the water at fifty pounds to the square inch: such are the conditions under which the divers work while tryir.g to salve £3,000,000 in specie from the wreck of the Laurentic. The liner was sunk off the north toast of Ireland in 1917, with £9,000,000 on board.

Two-thirds of this amount was salved soon after the disaster,, and -whilst on the job a diver had an exciting experience. The salvage vessel was attacked by enemy submarines and had to run for it. There was no time even to raise the diver, so he was towed! Luckily the lifeline held, and the man was later brought up in safety.

Such incidents as that are regarded by the men as being part of the day's work. Going down after treasure is not the only job the diver gets. For six years one man toiled in the dark and water under Cathedral. The building had been erected on a bed of peat, and was slowly subsiding. The task was to take out the peat and subsitiule cement, and it was rendered more difficult by the fact that as the peat was dug out the cavity filled with water, dut in the end the work was carried out successfully and the cathedral saved.

Again, in colliery districts, divers ure often required to go down into mines that have been flooded; at other times they are called upon to enter gasometers, and many times they have been employed by the police to search river beds and the like for various reasons.

Some few years back a diver was sent down by the French police to search ftr the body of a missing man. It was reported that the man had fallen over the side of a ship by accident, but the allegation was put forward that he had been murdered and the body thrown overboard. The bedy was found with wounds upon it that fixed the crime on the guilty person.

The work of saving specie is often risky and arduous, but generally the rewards for success nre good. When L;,mber£ and Tester brought up £90,000 from the wreck of the Alphonso XII., their commission amounted to £4OOO and £I2OO respectively.