Maybe a Moiety

Rolling at anchor in a pea-soup fog, the Italian salvage ship Artiglio lay off Cape Finistere last week and plumbed the depths. Steamers passing in the nearby trade lanes hooted mournfully but the Artiglio paid little attention. She was hunting one of the richest prizes of the ocean bottom.

On May 19, 1922, the P. & O. liner Egypt left London Dock for Bombay with 38 passengers, a crew of 290 and five tons of gold, 45 tons of silver in her hold, valued at over $5,000,000. The next evening, as she was passing the Island of Ushant off Finistere in a fog as thick as last week's, she was rammed amidships by the French cargo steamer Seine, went down in half an hour. Many have been the attempts to find, salvage her. The most important until last week was that of a Swedish Captain Hedbach in 1926.

Last week the Italian salvage ship Artiglio, fitted with all the latest scientific inventions for deep-sea diving, began cruising about the spot fixed by Captain Hedbach, sounding the bottom methodically, inch by inch. They struck a ship, 400 ft. down. Rough sea held up operations for several days, then a steel diving shell was slung over the side, equipped with oxygen tanks, a telephone, inch-thick glass observation windows. Youngest of the Artiglio's divers, Alberto Bargellini, went down. Director of Operations Alberto Gianni hung breathlessly on the other end of the telephone. Tense minutes of waiting. Director Alberto fretted, cried into the transmitter: "What do you see?"

Diver Alberto (from depths where pressure is enough to crush a human body to paste): "Nothing. I can see only two yards in front of me."

Director Alberto: "Are you on the bottom?"

Diver Alberto: "No."

The Artiglio's crew plumped him deeper.

Diver Alberto: "Stop! I'm on the bottom. ... I can make out something vast. . . . It's the end of a ship's hull. ... I can see the taffrail."

Director Alberto (hopping with excitement): "How many rails has it?"

Diver Alberto: "Three. It's a big ship. I can't see the deck. . . . Now I can see something. It looks like a crane."

Pandemonium on the Artiglio. The gold-bearing Egypt carried easily distinguishable hydraulic cranes of a type no longer used. Diver Alberto came up, Director Alberto went down. So did several other divers. In short order the wreck was identified as the Egypt. Deep in a jungle of seaweed, blurred with brown moss it was unmistakably the Egypt. Bottles were opened on the Artiglio that night, guitars and banjos were strummed.

It may be another year before the Egypt's gold is salvaged, even then a salvage court may have to decide how much of the Egypt's $5,000,000 the Artiglio's owners may keep. Ancient rule of the sea is that "The salvage award of an abandoned vessel amounts to a moiety [50 percent] of the salved value." The Artiglio's owners hope for more.

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