Frustration at Matanzas

Swart little Cubans who live between Cape Guancs and Cape Hicacos assembled on the shore of Matanzas Bay (60 mi. east of Havana) last week to behold a marvelous sight. Floating straight from shore toward the Gulf Stream, more than five feet in diameter and more than one mile long, a vast shining serpent lay upon the water. It was a serpent made of heavy, corrugated steel tubing--the deep-sea section of the pipe which Inventor George S. Claude of France had been laboring more than a year to lay, and through which he planned to draw cold water from the ocean bottom for a revolutionary seapower plant. A shoreward section of the pipe had been successfully laid the fortnight before (TIME, June 23). The seaward section, the most important one, the most ticklish one to lay, cost more than $1,000,000. Two steel cables, one inch in diameter, stretched out from shore to tie the pipe to its land base. Along the pipe's length were 120 tanks of compressed air, keeping it afloat.

At each air tank was posted a brown native swimmer, manning valves which would admit water, let the pipe sink to the bottom of the bay. When all was ready a whistle blast was sounded and the offshore end started to submerge. Watchers saw the long serpent slowly disappearing, when suddenly something went wrong. The great pipe started slipping sidewise, gathering speed. Tremendous pressure of strong subsea currents had snapped one of the shore cables like cotton thread. Soon the other cable parted and the whole long pipe plunged downward out of sight, a total loss in 2,300 ft. of water.

Thus ended Inventor Claude's second effort at Matanzas Bay. He charged that bungling was due to "wilful disobedience of orders by a party or parties not in sympathy with the success of the experiment." Of his next attempt he said:

"I am going to build another tube, an exact duplicate of the last one. I will have it completed . . . within two months. But this time the launching will be different.

"I secured a promise from President Machado that I will have henceforth the full support and protection of the Cuban government. He has placed the Army and Navy at my disposal . . . and there will be no repetition of Tuesday's occurrence."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.