Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1874 edition. Excerpt: ... Increased exertions were now made to recover the guns which were embedded some depth in the mud, and the divers cleared the way by sending up everything they could meet with, until nothing but insignificant fragments could be found. To assist them, two frigate anchors, and the half-anchor creepers, with some auxiliary instruments, drawn backwards and forwards as well as transversely over the site of the wreck, were made to do effectual work. The East India Company's Sappers had been removed before these labours began; the whole of the subsequent diving, therefore, was exclusively carried on by the Royal Sappers and Miners, and to their vigilance of observation and unceasing, zeal was attributed the recovery of thirteen guns late in the season. Of these, Corporal Harris got up three iron and six brass guns, Jones three brass, and Private Girvan one iron. Here it should be explained how much more successful than his comrades Corporal Harris was towards the close of the season in recovering guns, though the other divers, Corporal Jones and Privates Girvan and Trevall had been equally successful in all the previous operations. Corporal Harris fell in with a nest of guns, and it was a rule agreed upon that each first-class diver should have his own district at the bottom, with which the others were not to interfere. Jones, though satisfied with the arrangement as a general rule, was a little disposed to feel aggrieved when, by contrast, the odds were against him. He was anxious to know by what means Harris turned up the guns with such teasing rapidity, and going down with the secret intention of making the discovery, tumbled over a gun with its muzzle sticking out of the mud. This piece of ordnance legitimately belonged to Harris, for it was...