Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.
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| Airlift Being Used on Caribbean Shipwreck. Photo by Fawn Powers as published in Shipwrecks vol. 1, no.1. |
I've been looking through some old research including some old magazines that I recently found in my garage. Shipwrecks magazine is one of those. It provides a LOT of detailed shipwreck information, including coordinates and detailed information that you will not find in most publications. It is too bad but not surprising that the magazine was so short-lived. It is a great research resource.
I've also been talking about methods and techniques. It is too easy to get in the habit of going about things one way when there are other possible techniques. Yesterday I mentioned tow sleds. Today I'll touch on airlifts, which, it seems to me are not much used anymore., but should not be forgotten when it is right for the situation. Before that I showed how to use a large scoop with an extended handle to scoop up submerged items.
An airlift is a device based on a pipe, used in nautical archaeology to suck small objects, sand and mud from the seabed and to transport the resulting debris upwards and away from its source. It is sometimes called a suction dredge. A water dredge or water eductor may be used for the same purpose.
Typically, the airlift is constructed from a 3-metre to 10 metre long, 10 cm diameter pipe. A controllable compressed air supply vents into the inside, lower end of the pipe (The input end always being the lower end). Compressed air is injected into the pipe in one to three second bursts with an interval long enough to let the resulting bubble to rise to the higher, output end of the pipe. The bubble moves water through the pipe sucking debris from the lower end and depositing it from the upper end of the pipe. Ejected debris can be either cast off (as in simply removing overburden or collected in a mesh cage for inspection (as more often is the case in nautical archaeology). It is often designed to be hand-operated by a diver.
I'm planning on conducting some experiments using a modfied leaf blower.
Will report on that when done.
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The same issue of Shipwrecks.has five full pages on the City of Vera Cruz wreck, otherwise known as the Jewelry Wreck. It lies off Cape Canaveral in nearly 80 feet of water. Although a later wreck (1880), it carried quite a variety of cargo in addition to jewelry and gold coins.
The magazine reports on a number of expeditions on the wreck and other details.
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| McCormick & Co. Embossed Bottles. |
I recently posted pictures of a Sauer's extract bottle and was surprised to read that Sauer's was said to be the leader in extracts. In my experience, McCormick bottles seemed to be much more common along the Treasure Coast.
The bottle shown on top has an O in a square on the bottom, which indicates the Owens Bottle Company. As far as I can tell the probable date range could be 1919 - 1929.
The other bottle has a simple R on the bottom. I have not yet determined the manufacturer that used that maker's mark. I need to look into that some more.
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| 5/31/2020 |
Whoops. Wrong building. I'm so confused.
Here are the terrorists, that after four years of insurection, are jailed.
Clients — January 6 Legal Defense Fund (january6defensefund.org)
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| Source: nhc.noaa.gov. |
The red has a forty to sixty percent of becoming a cyclone in the next 48 hours. At this time it looks like it has the best chance of affecting us some. We'll see how quickly it turns north.
Good hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net