Show A LIVE YANKEE RAISING I 1 of STEAM FRIGATE MISSOURI AT the united states steam frigate mis komu was burned and sank in gibraltar harbo har boron rou the of august 1853 she careened an she ih went down and laying upon her beam ends enda presented one ot ol her shafts upward very near the surface of the water this mass of iron was nineteen inches in diameter and of course offered a dangerous obstruction to the navigation of the bay the existence moreover of so vast a body as the sunken frigate at the bottom of a harbor in which the tides ebbed and flowed and strong currents continually shifted the sand was wa not to be tolerated in an english port so important to the corn com m or cial and war marine of britain as was gibraltar the british government accordingly presented the case to ours at washington and requested us as to remove the obstruction we agreed to do ro po the british secretary conceiving the job to so be a very bad one kindly recommended to our government as very suitable engineers for the work lovi and marshall these gentlemen had acquired great reputation in england by raising the line of battle ship the ROYAL which sank so suddenly at Spi thead and carried down with her hundreds upon hundreds of men and women our navy department d ent employed these engineers to raise the Mis soum they went to worked and strained faithfully and for three long years at the noble hulk balk under water and then reported to the department at washington that the Misso missoura uRr could not be bera leed by human means they abandoned abondo ned the enterprise and returned to england the necessities of the case induced mr webster to take hold of the matter and find a man mail who would free gibraltar harbor of that obstruction he lighted on john E gowen of boston this gent lemans documentary title to the character of aa a submarine engineer of eminence was wo altogether ju iu the certificate of his birth asa yankee to be found in his fathers family bible he ha had no parchments parch ments nor sheepskins sheep skins ass skins or other skin d diplo masto a a to show to mr webs webster er bu but t when asked ty by the great secretary if be could remove the wreck or of the fri frigate 91 te as she lay jay there in forty one feet of water he said that lie ha would when asked if lie would bind himself to have every stick of the frigate out of the way kittila three years he said he would bind himself to accomplish com it in six months webster had found his man A contract was immediately made mr gowen was already equipped with his hia invaluable submarine armor the removing apparatus remained for him to construct on reflecting electing ting he decided to blow the frigate to piece sand lift and remove tile the fragments in detail the case on full inquiry and investigation proved to be one of peculiar difficulty the sand bid accumulated upon the wreck it was fifteen feet over her moreover the english engineers had hurt tile job and made it much more difficult by vast quan quant lites ites of powder at random among the engines and iron work they had twisted and tangled up the machinery badly above the fifteen feet of accumulated sund said was a depth of 26 feet of water to work through mr gowen devised metal cases which we believe lie afterwards patented to contain his hh charves of powder and which of course had to be placed under the frigates bottom and through fifteen feet of sand those cases were of cut cast iron 6 feet long 14 inches diameter and held a charge of 50 pounds of powder at the conical end was a large thread like that about a post auger east cast on to the case and to be used in n borin boring into the sand as with nith an auger this lower eni end was cast in a chill and was so hard bard and strong that it stood in one instance the test of being bored through a mcadam street in baltimore SIX feet lato iu to the earth mr gowen took out with him lu m 24 of these aliese iron powder Cylk cylinders iders he used only 12 of them hem they made toothpicks tooth picks of the massouris Mis souris hull bull his divers descended in their armor pointed the cylinders property properly these were arned by shafts worked from above and when arrived at the vessels bottom were fired by an electric battery the great quantity of pounds of powder was consumed in the work of this full two thirds were used in blowing off the iron bentres centres cen and arms from the shafts she was a side wheel steamer aud and had upon each of the outboard shafts 96 iron arms which weighed pou pounds ads a piece to break up this complicated mass of powerful iron work aud get it detached detach pd and reduced so as to be lifted iwae really the labor which mi our yankee ocean engineer had to do this part of the job it was that the english engineers had fooled with ith and injured but mr gowen knocked shafts arms cantres centres cen ceu tres braces and bolts right and left down there 41 feet below his hand and took up and carried away the great steamer to the uttermost u stick and the last visible spike nothing was left for the sand to for form m a bar upon n I 1 bild in five mouths months from the day M mr r gow gowen e n li began work lie he fully completed and performed bia contract he raised about I 1 GOO 1600 tons of iron and some tons of oysters that had grown to trie ane iron it is interesting to know that the oysters that grew to copper or upon copper were poisonous three men in gibraltar Gib died from having eaten them tho the iron of course was converted into plumbago by the action of the sea water in the heavy pieces this action extended in to the th depth of an inch many pieces were cut out entirely by the suit salt save a few threads of resisting metal running lengthwise and looking like the large urge fibres fabres of cocoa nut husks tho iron i mostly worthless the management of mr gowens submarine armor was so perfect that not an accident happened to one of his bis divers in all this thi i great work nua aua witti without ont any inconvenience the men could remain under water for the space of twelve hours can anything any thing better the yankee resource the yankee energy the yankee bonfi dence than fais hastily sketched history of the removal in oval of the reck rack oft of t eMis soum we think not the gentleman who without diplomas ean can thus teach lessons in the great art of submarine engineering gi to the graduates of the royal woolwich college is now in this city closing up his accounts with the steamer ERIE whose remains by his agency have lately been lifted from the bottom of our lake and brought into the Bu buffalo fralo harbor |