EXPERIMENTS IN SHIPRAISING.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2089, 2 December 1879, Page 3

EXPERIMENTS IN SHIPRAISING.

On tile Plotzensee, a large deep lake near Berlin, some interesting cx- : pertinents are being carried on in raising vessels or other sunken materials by means of carbonic acid gas. The process employed is the invention of Mr Lidner, an engineer of Vienna. .In, a collapsed balloon is inserted a bottle filled with sulphuric acid, and surrounded by Bullrich salts. The bottle can be thrown out of position at will by the action of a screw, and the acid falling upon the salts generates carbonic acid gas, which inflates the balloon. It is clear that an apparatus of this nature, if set in action in connection with- a sunken vessel, must tend to raise the latter. In the experiments recently made, a small vessel of some tons’weight was sunk in the lake, and a diver then went down with the apparatus, attached it to the ship, and set it in aclion. Hardly was this effected when the vessel rose to the surface, borne up by the inflated balloon. In a second experiment five heavy bags of sand were thrown overboard into a depth of 50 feet of water.- A diver descended, fastened the five sacks together, attached the apparatus, and in a very few minutes the chain of heavyladen bags was brought up to' the surface.