canal from the point where the ship is stranded to the open sea, wide enough to allow the vessel to pass through it, and then at high tide to tow the vessel seawards. In the case of a sandy coast this operation is both laborious and difficult, since the salvage engineer has to devise a means of preventing the work he has accomplished at low water from being destroyed when the sea rises at high tide. The banks of the improvised waterway are lined with sacks filled with sand, and this prevents the channel from being filled with silt by the action of the tide. A unique salvage feat was the recovery of the SS. Corvyn Matyass. This vessel was caught in the ice off Otchakoff, in the Baltic Sea, and the jamming ice-floes threatened to crush her. The ice-breaking steamer Ermack was unknown in those days, otherwise her rescue would have been an easy matter to the salvors; but the engineers had to resort to their own ingenuity and resources to accomplish the object. They cut a channel through the solid ice sufficiently wide to admit of the passage of the vessel. Quite an unusual scene of activity and bustle was imparted to the scene by the operations. No less than fifty teams of horses and sledges and 200 labourers were requisitioned to remove the ice, while another ship was utilised to dredge the channel to keep it open until the vessel was able to proceed on her way. Occasionally, when a vessel founders in shallow water, and the damage caused is not very extensive, divers descend, patch up the hole, and then tightly and securely batten down all the hatches, rendering them perfectly watertight. Pumps are then requisitioned to remove the water from the interior of the vessel. As the water is thus withdrawn, and no water can re-enter the holds, the wreck is bound to rise until she attains her original normal floating position, when she is towed into dry dock and then repaired. One of the most remarkable accomplishments in the work of marine salvage was the recovery of the steamer Milwaukee, or rather, the most valuable portion of the craft. She was a large steamer of 7,300 tons, and was en route from the Tyne to New Orleans, via the north of Scotland, when she ran upon the rocks near Aberdeen. It was a lamentable disaster, because the vessel was practically new. The underwriters determined on the difficult work of salvage, and entrusted the Liverpool Salvage Association with the task. The vessel was firmly jammed upon the rocks, and her fore part was extensively damaged owing to the action of the waves incessantly bumping her on the rocks. Recognising that the salvage of the vessel in its entirety was absolutely impossible, Captain Bachelor, an experienced engineer, who was superintending the work, decided to save her most valuable section-that is, the after part, containing the machinery, boilers, etc. By the aid of a belt of dynamite cartridges, placed round the hull of the ship at the desired point of severance, the vessel was cut in two. This was an extremely delicate operation, since unremitting care had to be exercised to prevent the explosions of the cartridges from damaging the boiler-room bulkheads. The actual cutting occupied several days, and 500 lbs. of dynamite were consumed in the operation. The task was successfully and cleanly accomplished, and the after part of the vessel floated away off the rocks. Then another danger arose. The enormous weight of the engines and boilers caused that end of the severed portion to sink deeply into the water, and great anxiety was evinced by the engineer as to the stability of the engineroom bulkheads being sufficient to withstand the tremendous presThe Milwaukee was constructed so strongly, however, that not the slightest sign of the bulkheads sure. collapsing under the unusual pressure was observed, and in this curious plight the saved portion of the Milwaukee was towed back to the Tyne, a distance of 150 miles, and the steamer actually assisted the tugs as far as possible with her own engines. When she arrived at the shipyard of Messrs. Swan and Hunter, who had originally built her, a new fore part was constructed and spliced to the saved section. This was no easy task, but so skilfully and carefully was the work fulfilled, that the second Milwaukee only differed from her prototype by six tons in her gross tonnage. The work of the salvage engineer has been considerably facilitated by the invention of ingenious appliances, without which it would be almost impossible for him to accomplish the work entrusted to him. The centrifugal pump, an apparently insignificant. contrivance, has done much to revolutionise salvage engineering. Then, again, how would the salvor fare without the valuable SS. "VOLA WRECKED IN THE SCAW. assistance of the diver? Probably the diver is his most essential acquisition, since the major part of the work has to be performed under water. The majority of the divers for this branch are supplied by Messrs. Siebe, Gorman and Co., the well-known manufacturers of submarine equipment, and are always thoroughly experienced and reliable men. It is through the courtesy of this firm that we are enabled to publish many of the illustrations accompanying this article. "I UNSOLVED. BY IAN MACLAREN.* No. IV. THE SPIRIT OF THE PLACE. T was my good fortune," said the barrister, when his turn came to tell a story, "to spend my summer holidays in the days of youth at a Perthshire farmhouse which stood among hills where the plain of Strathmore begins to rise into the Grampians. There was a little river to fish, and half-adozen burns where a boy could catch trout with his hand, and moors across which he could ride on his pony, and an endless change of scene, from helping with the harvest to going out to the shooters on the Twelfth, from gathering together a herd of Highland cattle on the hill-who had to be very delicately handled-to visiting a tinker's encampment among the broom, where the man repaired pots and pans, and the woman told fortunes. But the glory and inexhaustible attraction of the place was an old castle which by that time had fallen into ruins, and for which no one cared, and therefore it was at all times at the disposal of a lad in whom the spirit of romance, fed by Scott and Fenimore Cooper, was beginning to stir. Some fighting laird on the border line between the Highlands and the Lowlands, who never knew when the Caterans would come over the moor from the glens above and raid the cattle he had fed for the Southern markets, had chosen the site with care. Upon two sides there was a deep little glen, with a burn running at the foot and some fine old trees on the slopes, and here the cattle of the district could be sheltered in time of danger. On the top of the steep side of the glen the castle stood, and the land sloped away from it down to a river, and beyond the river it rose again into a little plain which in the olden times was covered with wood. When I could not fish any more, and nothing was doing on the moor, then I spent my afternoons in the castle or wandering about the den, and, as boys will do about the age of sixteen, I reconstructed the history of the past; and that, I suppose, explains what happened, or rather, it explains * Copyright, 1903, by Rev. John Watson, in the United States of America. how I lay open to the impression which I suggest was in the atmosphere of the place. "It was not difficult to rebuild the castle, which had been a fortified house of four floors, with no windows on the lower floor, only portholes, with projecting turrets at two of the four corners, and most likely a range of low houses for horses and servants, with an arched gateway completing the square. If one climbed carefully to the second floor, he could trace a dining-hall, with its huge fireplace and row of windows; and, looking up, he could see the remains of a little bedroom which opened into a turret ; and once, when no one was by to damp my daring, I managed to reach this bedroom, and looking through the turret window, could see across the plain on the other side of the river, and imagined how one might signal to a house in the distance. "That afternoon I not only rebuilt the castle, but I also tenanted it with a laird who had been out in the Fifteenth, and was going out in the Forty-Five-having for the time come to terms with the Caterans on the basis of a common love for the Stuarts and a common hatred of all governments. I gave him a handsome wife, who was the daughter of a Highland chief; and being in a generous mood, I enriched him with a beautiful daughter, whose love story I intended to work out after I had settled the history of the family and thoroughly furnished the house. About sons I was not certain, but was inclined to allow them one, who would distinguish himself greatly at the Battle of Preston Pans; but his career was also reserved. There were traces of fish-ponds on the southern slope, and the remains of a garden; and after filling the ponds and laying out the garden on a generous scale, I gave my attention to a special corner under the castle wall where there still lingered the relics of a pleasaunce. There could be no doubt this was the lady's own particular garden, for there were wild rose bushes and plants of thyme, and a yew tree, which had no doubt once been carefully trimmed, and also a fine old birch, beneath whose shade I placed a seat. Sitting there in imagination, one could look down into the den, and hear the water running over the stones, and see cattle among the trees, just as they had been herded there for fear of raiders; the flowers were blooming, and outside this sanctuary the pigeons were cooing at their dovecote. Through an opening in the yew hedge one could see the afternoon sun shining on the fish-ponds. From the open window of the hall above I heard the clash of swords, and knew that the laird and his son were fencing, and from the high turret of my young lady's room streamed out a Jacobite song. I was so pleased with my creation that I determined to complete the work while at it; and as it is tiresome to invent when you are standing, I went round the corner of the old birch tree and lay down on the grass. I shut my eyes, that I might better see what was within; and so it came to pass with me what happens to other people when they close their eyes in order to hear the sermon better and be relieved from the distractions of the outer world, I fell asleep. "When I awoke--although, of course, this is an ambiguity of language the sun had long been westering, and it was dusk round the old castle. How it came to pass, I did not think then and need not speculate now, but the scene had, as it were, grown and filled up, so that I was saved any more need for romancing. The trees in the den were smaller than when I fell asleep, but there were more of them, and the cattle were not as large nor as well bred as my good farmer's cows, but of them also there were more. As I looked round the corner of the birch, I saw the sweetest of little gardens, completely shut in by a high hedge, well stocked with flowers, chiefly white roses. In the garden there was a little summer-house, hidden under the castle wall and covered with ivy, so cunningly concealed that two people, at least, might meet there, and no one in the castle be any the wiser. There was a stir of life about the place, although everything was rougher and more common than I had imagined my ancient keep to be, except the garden, which, with its flowers and wellkept border, proved that one of the family had feeling and good taste. The voices that came from the courtyard were loud and rough, and through the hedge, although I did see the fish pond, I also, by another opening, caught a glimpse of a huge manure-heap, which could not be far from the front door of the castle. The windows of the room above my head were certainly glazed, but several of the panes were broken and some were repaired with wood. There were no dainty hangings, and someone had hung his coat outside to dry in the sunshine, which was now rapidly dying away. Only men's voices came from the room, with a strong, coarse accent; and I was certain that my idea of cavaliers, daintily dressed, sitting in an oak-panelled room drinking a health to the King over the water, would be rudely dispelled if I climbed up the ivy and looked in upon the Laird of Kinnochtry. As a matter of fact, I not only did not climb, but I was not able to move from my hidingplace beneath the birch tree. I was held there as by a spell, seeing everything and entering into everything, but unable to say a word or lift a hand. From the beginning I knew that something was going to happen, and that it would be terrible to behold, but that I should have no part nor lot in the matter. I was now present with one consciousness at some date in the eighteenth century, and looking upon life in my old castle as it used to be; but with my other consciousness I was in the nineteenth century -a lad who fished in the burn beneath and had made his own romances about the castle. And, in passing-though, of course, in those days I did not work the idea out is it not possible to be with one consciousness in one century and one place, and with the other consciousness in another century and in another place? And may it not be possible. and I will not trouble you further with any other speculation--for the atmosphere round one to be so charged with tragic events that they may become visible to a person in a susceptible state, as secret writing contained on paper can be flung out when exposed to heat? Even as I stood, I felt like two people, and the one of the nineteenth century was disappointed and disgusted with the sight of the courtyard, and a slatternly woman crossing the manure-heap, and that most unromantic garment hanging on the wall, and the remains of food cast out from the window upon the grass near my tree. But if romance be love and war, I should have enough before all was done. "The voices ceased in the dining-room, and a minute later I heard them in the courtyard ordering the horses to be brought, and announcing a journey to Blair, where the Lairds of Balhousie and Craighall, together with other drinking worthies of the district, were to hold a carouse for the night. An old man, short in stature, but strongly built, clad in hodden grey, with riding boots, |